


heart and half-soul

by robotsdance



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: + them literally being one soul in two bodies, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, POV Multiple, Soul-sharing, Souls, canon typical sibling incest, cersei lannister/jaime lannister - Freeform, show canon au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:47:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28943940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robotsdance/pseuds/robotsdance
Summary: Jaime and Cersei are one soul in two bodies in the most literal sense.Brienne isn't certain she has a soul at all.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 204
Kudos: 210





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have wanted this fic since I innocently wandered into the JB tag many moons ago. I spent a worrying amount of time last spring and summer lying on the floor staring blankly at the ceiling asking "How do souls work?" repeatdly. Sometime during that process I wrote most of a draft, but gave up before I finished it. I didn't look at it for six months, at which point I read it again and was like "oh my god? past me actually figured out how souls work???" and wrote the rest.
> 
> Thank you times a million to Luthien for betaing this when I hit the "I never want to look at this again" wall again. It is postable because of her noble efforts! And huge thank you to slipsthrufingers who not only put up with me during the lie on the floor asking how souls work stage, but also joined me on the metaphorical floor to help me figure it out. Any remaining mistakes are mine.

Jaime’s half of the soul he shares with Cersei strains against the limits of his body as he stands perfectly still in the throne room, drawn to its other half like a compass to north. Wherever Cersei moves in the castle, he knows. He can feel her proximity and her location. Can always point to exactly where she is. Can always be by her side without making a single wrong turn.

And the closer they get, the stronger it gets. At this distance he can feel the heat of her half of their soul warming his half of their soul like a thick cloak on a chilly day, but the closer they get… Jaime closes his eyes and exhales. The closer they get, the more he feels it. The warmth of her half of their soul becomes blissfully overwhelming, heating his half of their soul until he can barely feel the difference between them.

When he was younger he was certain that was how they would meld their soul back together. If he just stayed by her, always, the intense heat of her half of their soul would melt his down and their soul would reforge as one. As a child he used to fall asleep in her arms and dream of waking as they were meant to be, their soul whole and together.

He wanted nothing more.

He still wants nothing more.

Cersei is certain there is a way. She tells him sometimes, in a quiet voice that reminds him of when they were younger, the two of them in their bed or tucked away in some corner of the Rock. Her hand on his chest, the warmth of her touch, the fire of her half-soul, the solid agony of his, as she whispered that she would fix this. Jaime believed her then, and he believes her now. Cersei will figure out a way to put their soul back together.

For now, for now they are this.

Separate, but close. Closer than anyone. Close enough that all day, every day, he can feel the warmth of her as she moves throughout the Red Keep. Close enough that they can steal moments together and let their soul burn as close to together as they can, hot and bright and blinding.

He lets himself dwell on that as he stands guard beside the king. Of the feel of Cersei, safe as she can be in this moment. She is safe and she is near, but it is not enough. He is restless still. He is always restless.

Their soul never could bear any distance between them.

It has always been like this.

*

Cersei was the one to figure it out. Back when they were little. When they were Cerseiandjaime. One creature roaming Casterly Rock, as they were meant to.

Cerseiandjaime.

That is who they were always meant to be.

*

It’s like missing a limb, he muses as he stands off to the side of the King, feeling Cersei pace her solar above, to have been torn apart at birth the way they were. Their soul has never forgotten the agony of that moment. Of every moment since. The edges are still raw, an open wound they share that will never heal. A wound that will never be sutured back together.

Others can only pretend to know. Others can speak words and have their souls joined in marriage. A pale imitation of being half of a whole. As if a few words and a ceremony have anything to do with having your soul ripped in two. As if anyone but the two of them know what it means to have half of a soul. The pain and the disorientation of it, the way his heart beats out of rhythm sometimes, the way he can’t quite get enough air into his lungs…

The sense of being off balance is constant, like he wasn’t made for this world.

Jaime clenches his fists to steady himself. To focus on the feel of Cersei’s half of their soul reaching back for his, as it always is. He can always feel her, can always feel their soul longing to be whole again.

There is no peace in this.

They have done what they have to do to survive in this world. To stay by each other’s side where they belong. It is the only place for them to be.

Everything he has done, he has done to be near Cersei.

Any price he has to pay is worth it.

And Jaime is more than willing.

Anything he has to do, he will do.

To be near Cersei.

Always.

*

As a child he wept when they were safely out of sight of their father. It was so cruel. To be two. To be two instead of one.

“One day,” Cersei said, she said it many times. “I will figure out how to put us back together.”

Jaime longed for that day.

And it was only a matter of time.

Cersei was clever. Better at reading. At writing. At listening. At everything. Everything but swordplay. Cersei would fix this. She would figure it out. One day Cersei would put them back together.

One day they would be who they were meant to be.

*

Cersei is in her bedchamber when Jaime’s shift is done.

Jaime does not need to ask anyone to know this. He can feel her increasing proximity with every step he takes. His half of their soul guides him forward with every step, leading him like a singular lantern in the dark.

The King will be busy for hours.

The King will be busy for hours and Jaime needs to be near Cersei. Now. Now and always.

Their soul demands it.

*

Cersei does not look surprised to see him.

She felt him drawing near, of course. Jaime knows she felt every step he took closer to her, as surely as if she was the one moving.

Her half of their soul is as attuned to him as his is to her.

Jaime moves into her desperate embrace as his half-soul rattles against his ribcage, knowing something as weak as flesh and bone is the only thing that keeps it apart. Cersei makes a little sound of longing as he holds her and Jaime knows. Jaime knows Cersei is the only one who understands. The only one who knows what it means to be half of a soul.

His half-soul surrenders to the heat of hers, warming him from the inside out, all the while their soul aches and soars at their proximity. But it’s not enough.

Nothing is ever enough.

No matter what they do.

And it hurts fiercely. Every time. Every touch sets him alight and rips him apart all at once.

Because the agony of the truth is always there.

One soul.

In two bodies.

But then Cersei pulls him closer, as close as they can get and then closer, always closer and in the presence of the perfect heat of her half-soul Jaime almost forgets. He almost forgets that he is half and she is half.

His heart is so full of love for her that their soul can’t help but feel whole.

_Love_ , Jaime thinks as she tightens her grip on his neck and draws him to her. _This is love._

* * *

The journey north will be long and tedious. Too many days on the road. Too many days too close to Jaime with no hope for privacy. Too few whores to distract Robert. Cersei is dreading it.

So when Jaime comes to her she is expecting him. She would have been expecting him even if she couldn’t feel his approach like he’s tied to the other end of a string.

*

His heart. Jaime is always talking about his heart, like his heart and his half of their soul are the same thing.

They are not.

Her heart is not where Cersei feels it.

As if this was ever about that.

She loves him, of course. She always has.

But their soul is not their heart.

Only Jaime is too foolish to realize it.

*

If they had been born as one, Cersei muses again, the thought never far from her mind, if they had been born as one, everything would be right. Their soul in his body. Whole and complete.

Instead they are this:

She is Cersei.

And he is Jaime.

Her half of their soul burns with the injustice of it.

Even as Jaime holds her to him and speaks of such love he cannot contain it.

Cersei burns.

*

Their severed soul is close and screaming to be whole again so as Cersei burns, so soon does Jaime, until the fire in her consumes him as well.

As her half-soul burns, his half-soul melts and molds to hers.

The thrill of ownership rushes through her.

Jaime belongs to her. As surely as their soul belongs together.

That, and that alone, is what gives her part of their soul some measure of peace.

Jaime is hers.

He was born hers.

He will die hers.

And no one, not their father, not her husband, not the gods themselves, can tear them apart.

Jaime is hers.

All hers.

*

Jaime kisses her then, unable to wait a moment longer.

Cersei smiles against his lips, her hand tightening possessively in his hair.

It was so easy to convince him to join the Kingsguard for her. Five-and-ten they were. Five-and-ten and up all night in that inn, tucked out of sight from lesser eyes. Together and safe and hidden from the world, they revelled in the truth of them laid bare. The only truth that mattered: They were made for each other. Their soul proved that, beyond a shadow of a doubt. They were one. They belonged together, always.

One soul.

In two bodies.

Cersei needed to keep him close then. She needs to keep him close now.

He is her.

He is hers.

And their soul… their precious soul… one day she will figure out how to put it back together.

Sex isn’t the answer. It was never the answer. If that night didn’t do it, no amount of fucking would.

Still, as she grabs his face and kisses him harder and he moans and pushes her onto the bed, she can’t help but wish that it would.

*

“Cerseiandjaime,” he murmurs against her skin.

Cerseiandjaime.

That was their name back then. Before they understood the true injustice of what they were.

One soul.

In two bodies.

Not Cerseiandjaime. Cersei and Jaime. Jaime and Cersei. Cersei. Jaime.

Each carrying their own half of their shared soul. Each destined for different things.

Because he was the one born with a cock instead of a cunt.

Cersei burns.

Oh how Cersei burns.

*

Jaime breathes slow and deep and says it again, his half-soul molten gold against the blaze of hers.

Cerseiandjaime.

The fool.

Cersei lies next to him and holds him close. Whispers beautiful golden words into his beautiful golden head. Calls him “Cerseiandjaime” like it’s the only thing she will ever allow them to be until she feels their soul settle.

He dozes. She knows it won’t be for long. He cannot stay here. He can never stay here. But for a few lingering moments he dozes while she keeps watch.

Her hand is on his chest. She can feel his heart beating. She can feel his half of their soul alive and willing and _hers_ beneath his skin.

Cersei wants to claw him open and crawl inside. Dig his half of their soul out with her bare hands. Stitch them back together and put their soul back in his body where it belongs.

He would let her.

Jaime would let her. She knows. She knows he would. He would do anything for her. Everything for her.

He would let her carve him to pieces for them. For the person they were meant to be. As he should.

As he should.

*

The journey north is just as excruciating as Cersei had anticipated.

By the time they are almost at Winterfell their soul is beyond restless. Too long traveling. Too long apart. Close, but not close enough. (Never close enough.) Even as they are never more than a few hundred yards apart, the toll of being half of a whole wears on her twin. It wears on her as well, but not the way it wears on Jaime. Off balance and out of step and unfocused. Not enough so that anyone else would notice, but Cersei can tell. Cersei can feel it, as surely as she can feel his half-soul struggling to get closer to hers with increasing desperation. He would never survive in this world if it were not for her.

And in addition to the tedious effects of sharing a soul, Jaime is jealous. Cersei can feel him simmering on the edges of her awareness all the time, his body craving hers the same way his half-soul craves the life hers breathes into him.

Jaime wears the mask well enough to fool the idiots around them. But Cersei knows.

Cersei always knows.

*

They sneak off to an abandoned tower not long after they arrive. It is falling apart. No one will come here.

No one will find them here and their bodies have needs as surely as their soul does.

*

The cold does not agree with Jaime, it never did, but even his half-soul feels unnaturally chilled against her own when they press their bodies together. Cersei almost laughs as she snakes her hand up his tunic to drag her nails down his chest. He hisses and pulls her closer and growls something that sounds like “Finally.”

*

Jaime warms up shortly after.

Cersei always burned bright enough for both of them.

*

“He saw us.” Her heart is racing with the terror of being discovered. Terror she knows Jaime shares but does not reveal as he stands and approaches the boy perched in the window.

Jaime must act. Jaime must protect them. And yet there he stands, speaking to the boy.

“He saw us,” Cersei says again, slightly louder, slightly more desperate. Jaime must act.

“I heard you the first time.”

Cersei watches him. Cersei watches him look at the boy and silently implores him to act, to do what must be done for the sake of their soul. They share a soul but she cannot control Jaime’s body. It is never like that. Not once. She spent many long years trying to make it so. But she cannot control his body as if it is her own.

If she could control his body from the inside out this would never have happened. If she could control his body they would be King of the Seven Kingdoms by now, at the very least. If she could control his body she would have already dealt with the situation at hand.

Cersei cannot control Jaime’s body but it is of no matter.

Jaime looks to her and speaks of love.

Then Jaime pushes the boy out the window.


	2. Chapter 2

“That’s too far west,” the Kingslayer drawls as Brienne commands him to turn in the right direction.

“It is not.” Brienne hates him. Most everyone does, but she hates him more than most. She hated him before she met him and she hates him more now that she has. But Lady Catelyn charged her to see him safely back to King’s Landing in exchange for her daughters and Brienne is a woman of her word.

“It is.”

“How could you know that?” she asks and then regrets asking at once. He’ll have an answer. If she’s learned anything from him the last two days of travel, it’s that he has a smart remark for everything, including her silence. But the sky is overcast and they are out of sight of any road or landmark. There is nothing but trees and rocks and sky. He cannot possibly know which way is which.

“Cersei is that way.” Then he points.

She hates him.

*

“What I told your Lady Stark is true,” the Kingslayer says. He’d been quiet for all of 200 paces. Brienne should have known his silence could only bring worse things.

“I heard you then,” Brienne says, feeling her jaw tense. Listening to him casually confirm he put his sword in the back of the king he’d been sworn to protect, that he pushed Lady Catelyn’s son out a window, that he’d fathered three bastards with his own twin sister, that one of them sat upon the iron throne…

“And you did not believe me.”

“I believed you, Kingslayer.” Brienne believes every vile thing about him. She’d heard him admit he’d done every horrible act he’d been accused of. Why wouldn’t she believe him?

“Not about _that_ ,” he says. “No, I’m not talking about my deeds. I’m talking about my half-soul.”

Brienne does not dignify that with a response.

“I saw your face when I said it,” he says with a lingering glance over his shoulder. “One soul. In two bodies.”

“I did not make a face.”

“You did!” he insists, turning to walk backwards to look at her. “You’re making it again now!”

She probably did make a face then, and she sure as hells is making one now. Scowling at this disgusting man without a shred of honour daring to speak of souls.

“You don’t believe me,” he says. “But that is what we are. What we have always been. One soul in two bodies.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Who told you that?”

“Everyone.” And no one. No one has ever had to say such a thing is impossible, because it simply is not possible. “It’s impossible.”

“Yet here I stand before you with half of a soul,” he says. “Wouldn’t that explain a lot?”

It would.

But it can’t.

Because it’s impossible.

*

“Why does it upset you?” the Kingslayer asks some time later.

She hates that she knows which _it_ he’s talking about, despite the any number of unpleasant topics of conversation he has brought up as they travel. “It doesn’t upset me.”

“It does,” he says. “You’re already upset and I haven’t even said the words ‘half a soul’ yet.”

She makes a nondescript sound that says quite plainly that she does not care to discuss it any further. Not that any of his topics of discussion have been her choosing.

“You aren’t one of those types to truly believe in pretty words like One Heart, One Flesh, One Soul, are you?” he asks.

Brienne says nothing. She does not react. She does not do anything at all—

“Oh gods you are!” He sounds delighted. She loathes him.

“What difference does it make to you?” she asks stiffly. “Vows mean nothing to you, Oathbreaker.”

“The would-be knight with the maiden’s heart,” he says, unbothered by her jab. “I shall have to compose a song about you.”

“Do not—”

He’s already started.

*

That night he hums in contentment and closes his eyes after they have eaten, tipping his head back so it rests against the tree behind him.

Brienne frowns.

It rained earlier. The ground beneath them is damp. Their evening meal was small and simple and far from filling. There is no discernible cause for his good mood. There is no discernible cause for his good mood and she does not trust it.

She does not trust it but she does not ask.

“It has been ages since I was this close to Cersei,” he says as if she had.

Brienne grunts. She did not ask. She will not dignify this with a response.

“Surely you must know the feeling,” he continues as she busies herself with the fire. “Your soul must yearn for your beloved Renly still.”

“My soul does no such thing.”

He considers that for a moment before he says, “Perhaps you do not have one.”

*

Sitting guard that night, Brienne also thinks it over. She wishes this was not the case, but the night is long and she’s thinking about it. The Kingslayer is certain he has half of a soul. She is not one to argue about such things, but it’s impossible in the first place and it’s also impossible he would know the way he claims to. It is impossible.

Brienne has never given much thought to her own soul. She assumes she has one. Her septa spoke of such things on occasion, that her soul was beautiful, usually in relation to the rest of her being far less than.

But she does not know what her soul is or what it feels like.

She has no idea how the Kingslayer could be so certain he has half of one.

*

Brienne catches herself thinking about it as they travel over the following days. In the rare moments the Kingslayer is capable of shutting his mouth for long enough for her to hear her own thoughts, she thinks about it.

She tries to examine herself from the inside, prodding at her thoughts and feelings, searching for something that she knows without a doubt is evidence she has a soul. But there is nothing tangible, nothing she can point to with certainty. She has a heart beating in her chest, her lungs swell as she inhales, the hint of sunlight through the trees is warm on her skin, and the weight of her armour is familiar. Each step she takes is full of purpose and determination to do her sworn duty to Lady Catelyn, the way she couldn’t for Renly, and all the while her mounting frustration at the man a few paces ahead of her is simmering amongst all the rest.

All of this is routine and none of it is indisputably her soul. At least as far as she knows.

*

“How do you know?” she asks him as they trudge through a particularly muddy patch of woods.

“Know what?” he asks lightly.

She hates him. He knows exactly what she’s asking about. He’s brought it up multiple times a day to get a rise out of her. Still, she is curious in spite of herself. No amount of thought has brought her closer to being able to identify her own soul.

“It’s like being born without a leg,” he says even though she refuses to clarify her question. “I know what isn’t there.”

“A soul is not a leg.”

“No,” he agrees. “It is not. But I know what I am missing all the same.”

She thinks of him pushing a boy from a tower window. “A soul.”

“Half a soul,” he corrects. “I know what I am missing but I’ve always known exactly where it is. As does she.”

“Can you… feel what she is feeling?”

“No, although sometimes, when we are close…” he trails off wistfully. “But our soul is the same soul. We feel the same, even though our soul is trapped in two separate bodies. We know it.”

“That isn’t proof,” Brienne says. “That isn’t even evidence. It just sounds like an excuse.”

“I don’t need an excuse to fuck her,” he laughs. “She’s the most beautiful woman in the world and she loves me as I love her and—”

“She is your sister.”

He shrugs as if this is a trivial piece of information. “We were always more than that. One soul in two bodies.”

“Just because you say that, doesn’t make it true.” Love-drunk fools will say any number of things and nothing he’s said is evidence. None of it is proof. He can’t have half a soul. And even if he did, there’s no way he could know or prove it.

“I can feel her half-soul. Always,” he says, suddenly deadly serious. “You could cut out my eyes and deafen me and leave me stranded a thousand miles from Cersei and I would find my way back to her.”

“Devotion and persistence are not evidence that you have the same soul.”

“I would never take a step in the wrong direction,” he says. “I would never stray from the most direct path to her. Our soul is drawn together. I have always been able to feel her half of our soul, as she is able to feel mine. We are the same person. We are one soul trapped in two bodies. And let me assure you, it is nothing at all like the vows and songs would imply.”

Brienne is not going to debate the state of his soul any longer, but she can say with confidence that he and his twin are not the same person. She probably shouldn’t say anything, but he looks so smug, so sure, that she can’t help herself, “You are not your sister. She did not kill the king she was sworn to protect.”

“No,” the Kingslayer agrees, flashing her his most obnoxious smile. “That was me.”

*

The following day begins as most of them have. He makes his comments about this and that while she kicks dirt over the remains of their campfire, he makes his comments while she unties him from the tree, he makes his comments as they set off towards the south, as they have every day so far.

It is routine.

It is not enjoyable, traveling with him this way, but she is accustomed to it.

It is routine.

Everything is routine until they come to the bridge.

And then nothing about what happens next is routine.

*

The day ends with the swift and brutal thud of a knife and his anguished screams that follow.

*

Jaime is delirious with pain and exhaustion, and Brienne is worried. His skin is clammy and burning with fever as he lolls forward, and Brienne reaches out to steady him where they’ve been tied to a tree and each other for the night.

He’s thrown up everything that could possibly be inside him. His lips are dry and cracked. His severed hand is hanging around his neck. The sight of it makes Brienne light-headed.

He wilts against the tree behind him. His eyes are closed. He looks more willing to die than live. But he must live. Lady Catelyn commanded her to see him safely to King’s Landing. She must exchange him for the Stark girls. He must live.

“Which way is Cersei?” Brienne asks him quietly. It is the only thing she can think of to ask him.

He’s barely conscious. He is barely alive. She’s not even sure he heard her.

But then he points with his only remaining hand towards King’s Landing.

He points towards King’s Landing precisely.

* * *

Cersei is ahead.

In the days that follow the loss of his hand, that is what Jaime focuses on.

Even through the pain and the fever and the stench of his hand hanging from his neck, Jaime can feel their soul pulling closer with every inch he travels. At this distance the sensation is still mild, still nothing at all like what it feels like to be in the Red Keep with her, still nothing like being in her arms, but it is there. It is always there. As long as his heart beats in his chest, his half-soul strains towards Cersei.

This is how Jaime knows he is still alive.

And when he wishes he wasn’t, when he is sure to die within the hour, too weak to open his eyes, too dizzy to keep anything down, Brienne is there. She is always there. And every time he is ready to let the Stranger take him in the night Brienne asks which direction Cersei is.

And Jaime knows. Every time Brienne asks, he knows.

This is what Jaime focuses on.

*

He eats tonight. Not much more than a few bites of stale bread, but he keeps it down. Brienne watches him without a word and when he finishes she offers him some of hers.

He shakes his head, or rather he tries to. Stops when it is too much. She doesn’t press the issue.

When Jaime falls into an uneasy sleep as the fever burns through him, Cersei is behind and slightly to the right of the tree he is tied to. Miles away of course, but his half-soul knows.

Brienne is on his left, watching over him still.

*

When they arrive at Harrenhal, Cersei is to the left of where Jaime is shoved to his knees and then kicked onto his face as he is presented to Lord Bolton, the person he will have to convince to return him to his father for an obscene number of dragons.

Brienne is there as well. She is on his right.

*

When he sits across from the maester who introduces himself as Qyburn, Cersei is to Jaime’s right. She is miles away, but she is on his right.

Jaime refuses milk of the poppy outright, though the maester at Harrenhal is keen to provide it. He will not allow Qyburn or anyone else the opportunity to rid him of any more of his arm. So Jaime shakes and sweats and does his best to focus on the tugging hint of warmth in his half-soul that means he is that much closer to where Cersei is as Qyburn cuts away the rotting flesh at the end of his wrist.

And while the maester works, Jaime screams.

Jaime screams very loudly.

*

When Jaime wakes he still has his arm. He has his sword-arm to the wrist and no further. Instead of his sword-hand he has a tightly wrapped bandage and pain that is not solely in his wrist.

He tries not to look at it, but he cannot stop himself from glancing at it any more than he can stop himself from thinking of it. That was the hand that made him a knight. The hand that made him the Kingslayer. The hand that pushed that boy from the tower…

Who is he without his sword hand?

The answer comes as easily as if Cersei were here to whisper it in his ear herself: He is what he has always been, the other half of Cersei’s soul.

Jaime needs to get back to Cersei.

With help he stands. He is hot with fever still, his skin as clammy as it is filthy. He’s spilled the wine he was given instead of milk of the poppy all over himself.

Jaime falters but stays on his feet.

He needs to get back to Cersei.

But first he needs a bath.

*

As he walks down the steps to the baths he can feel Cersei in the distance to his right. Her half-soul and his will be close soon. And after that together. Cersei always said she would figure out how to put them back together…

He needs to get back to Cersei.

But first he needs a bath.

*

Brienne is in the bath when he arrives.

There are two tubs, but he chooses hers.

He lowers himself into the scalding water across from her.

Brienne does not leave.

*

At first words come out of his mouth harsher than he intends.

She stands.

She stands in front of him.

He looks at her.

(And he sees her.)

He apologizes.

(And he means it.)

Brienne stays.

*

Words spill from him in her presence.

As they never have before.

Words spill from him until he smacks his bandaged stump against the tub as he tries to stand and the shock of pain is enough to make him drop.

*

Brienne is there to catch him.

*

He feels the ocean around him before he sees it.

Ocean as far as the eye can see. The water here is cooler than the over-hot tub, but it is comfortable. Refreshing and warm all at once.

The blue-black sky above is filled with stars.

The sky spans to the horizon where it meets the endless stretch of water. There is no land in sight.

Jaime is alone.

(He does not feel alone.)

*

Jaime does not swim.

Jaime does not sink.

He stays right where he is on the surface of the still water, held between the unfathomable depths and the unreachable heights by a power far beyond his own.

*

Jaime feels small.

This place is so vast and he is so small.

Jaime is not afraid.

*

He did not want to be the first Lannister to die in a bath, but there is peace here.

He could slip away.

He could.

*

(He does not.)

*

It takes him a moment to realize he is on the edge of the tub.

The sensation of floating in the middle of a vast ocean is still there. The starlight lingers on the inside of his eyelids.

He is still in Brienne’s arms.

*

After.

After whatever that was Brienne helps him finish cleaning himself and then helps him dress for supper.

She does not speak of his weakness. She does not speak much at all.

*

At supper it becomes abundantly clear that Brienne is better with a sword in her hand than at tasks that require a more delicate touch. Jaime does as much of the talking as he can while Brienne simmers silently on his left. At one point he has to put his hand over hers, lest she act upon the impulse to attack the problem in front of them the way she is more comfortable with. Not that Jaime is entirely opposed to her stabbing the man who sits across from him, but as much as that would liven up their meal, it will not help either of them.

Soon it is agreed upon: Jaime will be returned to King’s Landing. He will leave the following morning. Brienne is to remain behind. Her father will ransom her. She will go back to her island and Jaime will return to King’s Landing.

Back to Cersei.

His half-soul twinges at the thought. Cersei. Right now Cersei is behind him, he realizes with a jolt. Slightly to his right, Jaime corrects after a moment, Cersei is slightly to his right and behind him. That is where Cersei is. That is where Jaime needs to be.

On his left Brienne sits very still.

*

“Goodbye, Ser Jaime,” she says to him before he leaves.

Brienne is in a cell when she says it.

It is far nicer a cell than he was kept in for much of the last year, but it is a cell nonetheless.

(Her father will ransom her soon.)

*

Once again Jaime finds himself traveling towards King’s Landing.

Cersei is ahead.

Cersei is ahead and getting closer all the time.

His half-soul should be so relieved. And it is. It is. Every hour that passes brings him closer to Cersei. Every hour that passes makes the sensation grow stronger. The warmth. The warmth of her half-soul that will only get hotter the closer he gets. The fire in her half-soul will melt him down from the inside out soon enough.

He can’t wait.

Cersei is ahead.

Cersei is ahead and Jaime will be with her soon.

*

That night he dreams of the dark and of Cersei.

Her half-soul burns in the darkness for him like a torch, giving him light. She is the only light.

He dreams of Cersei but she leaves.

Cersei leaves.

Even when he begs her to stay with him, Cersei leaves.

Jaime is alone in the dark.

Then Brienne is there with him.

And it is not as dark as it was.

*

When Jaime wakes it is like this:

Cersei is ahead.

Brienne is behind him.

Jaime turns around.


	3. Chapter 3

Jaime stands in front of her.

For the first time in many long moons, Cersei and her other half are together again.

Cersei did not feel him approaching.

Cersei did not feel him approaching and as she looks at him now, fragile and filthy and missing a hand, she tries to feel the truth of them beneath the blanket of weakness and she recoils from what she finds.

Their soul.

His half of their soul…

His half of their soul barely feels like Jaime at all.

*

Cersei sends him away from her. She doesn’t want to look at him while he’s like this. This disgusting creature who has returned to her in the place of her other half. Only when he is gone is she free to think on it, but even in his absence she can feel the warped shards of his mangled half-soul grinding against hers. It sets her teeth on edge.

She pours herself a generous goblet of wine.

Jaime has returned to her, but he has taken too long.

Jaime has returned to her, but he is maimed and crippled.

Jaime has returned to her, but the part of her that lives in him is twisted and tarnished, barely recognizable as their soul at all.

How could he be so careless with his half of their soul?

Nothing is more important than that.

Nothing.

*

Cersei cannot stand the sight of him. She cannot stand the feel of him. Even when he is out of sight she can feel him moving about the Red Keep and she hates it hates it hates it because he still feels _wrong_. He still barely feels like Jaime.

At least with his golden hand in place she doesn’t have to dwell on the hideous stump at the end of his arm. And his awful beard is gone, thank the gods. His hair is too short for her liking but it will grow back and then he will look more like he is supposed to.

Soon enough he will look like the other half of her soul once again.

However. The matter of their soul remains. Their soul has never felt less aligned. Their soul has never felt less complete. The part of their soul in him constantly scrapes and grates against hers, making her skin crawl. It’s repulsive.

His half-soul has always been a malleable thing in the presence of hers. That is how they work, the two of them. Their soul was meant to be one, and that is as close to one as they have achieved, his soul bending and twisting around the endless heat of hers. It is what their soul craves, even now, their soul hungers to be whole. But how can they be whole when Jaime has been so careless with his half?

Now her half-soul burns, fire and flame and heat, and his half-soul barely warms. His half-soul is cold and sharp and solid. Even when he tries to surrender to the pull of their soul, to be as they are meant to, his half-soul does not relent. The edges (she shudders at the thought of his half-soul having something as defined as edges) barely soften in her presence.

How dare he return to her with his half of their soul as grotesque as his arm.

*

“Cersei,” he says when they are alone together. She has made a point to not be alone with him. Every time they are his words are soft but his half-soul is as solid and sharp and repulsive as ever. She does not want to be anywhere near him until he is her Jaime once again. “I’ve been back for weeks.”

“You took too long.”

They’ve had this conversation before. This same fight. He doesn’t seem to understand. He was gone. She was here. Now he has returned and wants to pretend everything is like it was when he left.

And nothing is like it was when he left.

She grabs his face and kisses him, presses her hands to his chest. Maybe she can break through whatever the broken thing inside him is and—

His half-soul is shards of icy glass against hers, impervious to the fire that burns her. That always burned them both.

She hates him.

“I don’t know why…” he says as she pushes herself away from him and heads for the door. “I don’t know why it feels like this.”

“You left,” she snaps. And then again, sharper this time, when he protests that he was captured, that he was plotting his escape, that he followed the pull of her half-soul home.

His pretty words of love. Of his heart. Of his heart and their soul.

She doesn’t want to hear it.

He did this to them.

This is his fault.

*

Cersei can’t sleep that night. This is also Jaime’s fault. She can feel his monstrosity of a half-soul on the other side of the castle, yearning for hers even as he sleeps. She hates that they are still connected like this even as he is a shadow of his former self. She hates that they were born as they are. One soul in two bodies. If she had been born as she was supposed to… If she had been born as she was supposed to be, her soul in Jaime’s body…

But she wasn’t.

She was born in her body and he was born in his. And their soul was torn in two and divided between them and now something has happened to Jaime’s half.

This has happened before.

Not to this extent. Never to this unforgivable extent. But it has happened before.

When he was sent away from her to squire and returned to her a knight. When they reunited in that inn his half-soul felt a little different than she remembered, but it molded to hers like it was meant to as soon as they closed the door behind them. As she recalls, she hadn’t even had time to speak his name before his half-soul and hers ignited like wildfire.

The second time was a little different. Her plan had succeeded and failed. Jaime was in the Kingsguard, but instead of being near her, she had been taken back to the Rock and once again she and the other half of her soul were left to suffer apart. And suffer they did. Every day at the Rock she could feel his half-soul and hers desperate to be whole again. The years he was squiring had taken their toll, but it was nothing like this, the brief taste of together left them starving for more. And she was bound and determined to have more.

This time when they reunited he was the Kingslayer and she was to be queen to the new king. Cersei shifts where she lies, trying to get comfortable, trying to recall how his half-soul felt that time. Different than how she had left him for sure, but it had not been like this.

Back then there were moments he felt like clay in her hands perhaps, solid but still soft enough to shift. Something that needed to be touched before it could truly shift forms. It hadn’t taken long. Soon their soul felt as it should: he was hers and she was queen.

She fixed it then. She will fix it now. Sooner or later his half of their soul will behave as it should.

For now she settles for the fact that Jaime is here. Even as his presence is a constant thorn in her side, a scratchy seam of her dress, a never-ending reminder that he is here but he is not wholly the Jaime he should be. He is here. Sooner or later his half-soul will remember its place and yield to hers once more.

When that happens she can get back to focusing on how to rejoin their soul, once and for all.

For now Cersei sets the thought aside.

She has more pressing matters to attend to.

*

At Joffrey’s wedding Cersei barely spares a thought for Jaime. She can feel him of course. He’s been no more than 50 feet from her all day. His half-soul is as unpleasant as it has been since he returned but she has other things on her mind. Her beautiful son and his bitch of a bride for starters.

*

Cersei cannot help herself from following this curiosity that is Lady Brienne away from the high table. She is an ugly creature of a woman, too tall and too broad and too muscular. Her discomfort is obvious beneath her attempt at a courteous manner. She will never survive at court.

Cersei smiles. “I owe you my gratitude. You returned my brother safely to King’s Landing.”

When Cersei mentions Jaime she realizes the effect of his maimed half-soul has finally relented somewhat. She can still feel him, but he does not feel to be as close as she can see he is. He is standing some 20 feet away over Lady Brienne’s shoulder. Cersei allows herself a moment to consider it. After weeks of their soul being in a constant state of agitation, even this brief reprieve is most welcome. The pull of their soul is still there, but her awareness of it has been subdued. It’s like when he is very far away, but more so. Like the space their soul yearns to cross has been distorted and dampened somehow.

Whatever is causing it, Cersei hopes it lasts until Jaime feels like himself once again. For now she has the person most apparently responsible for his return in front of her.

“In truth, he rescued me, Your Grace,” the great beast says. “More than once.”

“Did he?” she asks. Jaime did not mention. Jaime has barely said a word of this creature beyond that she saw him back to King’s Landing. “Haven’t heard that story before.”

Brienne is not keen to tell that story. It is of no matter. Cersei points out the great number of fascinating stories she must have collected living as she does, swearing herself to whoever she fancies in the moment, serving whoever caught her eye, Jaime included.

“I don’t serve your brother, Your Grace.”

Her face is honest. Far too honest for her own good. Imagine being so pathetic.

“But you love him.”

It’s even better than Cersei thought. The hideous creature is in love and hadn’t even known. She truly did not know. Imagine being so ugly and so hopelessly in love.

Brienne says only, “Your Grace,” and moves to flee without even an attempt at a clumsy bow or curtsey.

Cersei basks in triumph until Brienne steps away and the presence of Jaime's half-soul grates against hers worse than ever before.

* * *

Jaime stands a little straighter and turns towards Cersei, expecting her to be right beside him. That is how sudden the shift he felt in his half-soul was. The pull between the pieces of their soul was distant and hazy and then it was not. And even given that their soul has not been what it once was as of late. That there are times… there have been times that even though he can feel her half-soul is close, he cannot pinpoint precisely where. To have their soul jolt so suddenly, it must mean—

But Cersei is not beside him. She is to his right about twenty feet away. Cersei is watching Brienne walk away from her.

Their split soul struggles towards each other though they both stay where they are, and it feels even worse than it has since he returned. They used to find such comfort in this pull between them and now… now it is only a reminder or what they have lost. That even as they endure the agony of being split in half this way, now their soul does not fit together as it should.

And even as his half-soul pulls towards Cersei, Jaime has to force himself not to follow after Brienne. Not that he would ever let Cersei see him doing something like walking towards Brienne or speaking with Brienne. He would not endanger Brienne like that. He has mentioned Brienne to Cersei exactly once, and not by name, though he knows Cersei would have discovered the name of the strange woman who escorted him home. Jaime was careful, but Cersei is Cersei. Cersei is Cersei and she was just speaking with Brienne.

Then Cersei looks right at him.

She looks furious the way Cersei is best at: beautiful and dangerous and still.

Jaime has to get Brienne out of King’s Landing.


	4. Chapter 4

Brienne tries not to think of Ser Jaime in the moons that follow her leaving King’s Landing in the wake of King Joffrey’s murder, but she does.

She thinks of the man who saved her from rape, the man who came back for her, the man who jumped into a bear pit unarmed to help her.

She thinks of the man who gave her a sword and armour and a squire, and sent her to fulfill the oath she had sworn.

Brienne thinks of the man the world calls ‘Kingslayer’ and of how heavy he was in her arms in that bath when he whispered that his name was Jaime.

But perhaps most of all, Brienne thinks of Jaime, the man who killed his king to save half a million souls though he has only half of one inside him.

*

Brienne tries not to think of Ser Jaime but she does and she does and she does, even as she wishes she did not.

Brienne especially tries not to think of Jaime back in King’s Landing with his sister, with the other half of his soul. She does not know for certain if he is still there with her, not the way Jaime always knows where his sister is. But that is where Brienne assumes he is.

That is where he belongs. That is where he wants to be.

She tries to put him from her mind.

*

Brienne thinks of him still, against her better judgment. She dreams of him as well, which might be better because at least her dreams are not something she could expect herself to control, but in practice it is worse than the occasional fleeting (lingering) thought, because the dreams are vivid and not strictly honourable and when she wakes the images are hard to shake from her mind.

Still she tries.

She tries very much not to think of him.

*

In that bath they had shared, Brienne had seen him. All of him. He looked half a corpse and half a god at the time. Half corpse, half god, with half of a soul.

Always halves.

But when he fainted and she caught him…. As she held him in her arms, he did not feel like half of anything or anyone.

Brienne is trying not to dwell on it.

*

And while she’s busy trying not to let her thoughts stray back to Ser Jaime and his half-soul, she’s equally busy trying not to dwell on thoughts of her own soul.

Before she met him she did not think of her soul at all. The idea of it did not taunt and torment her. But now she cannot help herself from trying to reach for it, to parse herself apart in quiet moments in the hopes of finding it.

She has had no success. Her soul is inscrutable. There is no piece of her she can point to and know with certainty that it is her soul.

Perhaps Jaime was right.

Perhaps she does not have one.

* * *

Jaime tries not to think of Brienne, but he does.

Often.

Even though there are other things demanding most of his attention. Pressing, urgent matters of Joffrey’s murder and Tyrion’s trial. Mundane day to day routines of doing his duty to protect the King. (His son. His second son. He does not need Cersei to remind him that he has already failed to protect the first, but she does.) And always his half-soul and Cersei’s tug and ache for each other as much as they seem to repel one another. He’s been back for so long and it’s not getting better.

His half-soul is not getting better. He is not becoming more like he was. Cersei is near and still… it is not like it was. Right now he is here and she is… he has to think about it before he knows. Several floors above him and to his left. He thinks. He is not sure. Every day is like this. The disquiet in his half-soul is constant and sometimes the agitation is so great he does not know which direction Cersei is in at all.

He thought sex would help, but even that is not like it was before. His half-soul and hers never felt anything like whole. Even when they were as close as two people could get in that sept. Even as she said “Yes” and “Like that” and “I have you”. Even as she whispered “You’re home now, you’re home” as he buried himself inside her. Even then his half-soul resisted the all-consuming heat of hers. He thought… he thought that their bodies would remember and their soul would follow.

He thought his half-soul would relent to her touch leaving them feeling molten and gold and whole. It used to be like that. They only needed to be close for it to start to happen. Within ten feet of her his heart would race and his half-soul would burn like hers and everything felt as it should and they would be Cerseiandjaime. At least for a time.

It has not felt like that since he returned and now their son is dead and even as they try to reach for each other through her rage and grief and frustration, their soul does not feel as it should.

This would be hard enough. But in amongst this Jaime keeps finding himself thinking of Brienne.

At odd moments he thinks of her. In the day and in the middle of the night. Sometimes while he is in the bath. He thinks of her and her sword and hopes she is well and sets the thought aside. But his thoughts stray back to her again and again.

Brienne and her big blue eyes.

Brienne in her armour. In that hideous dress.

Brienne in that bath they shared…

Jaime tries very hard not to think of Brienne.

*

Jaime tries not to think about Brienne’s soul, but he does.

In the bath… When it happened he was not certain what it was. A fever dream, perhaps, or death itself. In the moment he had barely thought at all, just felt the water and the sky and—

Brienne’s soul.

He wishes he was not so certain that’s what it was, but Jaime has spent his life, his whole life, hyper aware of his own half-soul and Cersei’s. He knows what it feels like to be in the presence of a soul, though nothing he’d ever felt with his half-soul and Cersei’s had prepared him for what it would mean to find himself amongst a soul such as Brienne’s.

Vast.

Vast is the word that keeps coming to mind. Her soul was so vast and so whole. A whole world on its own. Sea and sky. Ocean and stars. Water and air. The horizon felt like the edge of forever.

He’d felt so safe there. Even though he shouldn’t have been there at all. A half-soul like his was built to be molded and fused to its other half, to devour and be devoured in turn until they were whole again. The very act of having half of a soul was an act of destruction and creation he and Cersei were doomed to reenact until they came together for good or died in the attempt.

But there… when he was there he was just _there_. His half-soul was there in the middle of Brienne's impossibly vast soul and her soul made no attempt to do anything but keep him afloat until he was able to open his eyes.

His half-soul was safe and solid between the ocean and the stars, and when he woke the feeling lingered.

Jaime felt as safe in Brienne’s arms on the edge of the tub as he had in the starlit sea moments before.

And Jaime’s half-soul felt solid in ways it hadn’t before.

*

Jaime tries not to think about Brienne’s soul any more than he tries to think of his own half-soul. Or rather, whatever his half-soul has become.

He and Cersei are not what they were. Their soul is not what it was. Cersei burns as she always did, but now Jaime’s half-soul does not melt to wrap itself around hers. No matter what he does. No matter how much he tries to be as he was, his half-soul is solid and unyielding, barely warming to her presence, to her touch, to her love.

Jaime tries not to think about it.

* * *

Jaime’s half-soul feels more like it should when Cersei mentions the children. Just for a moment, an infuriatingly fleeting moment, but it is something, and Cersei will press her advantage wherever she can find it. Gods know Jaime is good for little else in his current state.

She will send him to retrieve their daughter. That will work nicely. That will get him away from her while his half-soul still mocks their very essence and get Myrcella back home where she belongs. With any luck Jaime will return feeling more like he should.

Until then his half-soul is more useful elsewhere.

In the meantime Qyburn will do his research on the subject as she commanded him to and Cersei will do her best to put the thought of their soul from her mind.

* * *

Tarth is beautiful. Even from a distance it is beautiful. Jaime stares openly, trying to take in the sight of the sparkling water, the lush green mountains and meadows as much as he can as the ship he is on sails past the island.

He lets himself think of Brienne and what it felt like to be a tiny island amongst her boundless soul until long after Tarth is out of sight.

* * *

Brienne wakes before Pod’s watch is done and she chooses to take over from him early. He tries to insist he finish his first, but he is yawning and she is awake so he relents and makes to lie down.

With her back against a tree Brienne thinks of many things. First of how she will best serve Lady Sansa now that she is sworn to her, then of what she will teach Pod tomorrow as they train in the early morning light. She thinks of the traps they set and how she hopes a rabbit or two will have stumbled upon them in the night, of Lady Sansa sleeping fitfully, of the sword laid across her lap, of Jaime…

She does not know where he is now. She assumes he’s still in King’s Landing, but she does not know. Not the way Jaime always knows where his sister is. The way he can feel it in his half-soul. Brienne didn’t believe him at first, but after he lost his hand… even at his worst, when he was so close to death there was no potential for trickery… he always knew which direction King’s Landing was in because that is where his sister was.

Brienne’s soul, if she even has one, is not bound to Jaime’s. Even as she catches herself thinking of him this way, hoping he is well, it is not at all the phenomenon Jaime described.

It is a thought and it is a feeling. Neither of which have anything to do with her soul, as far as she can tell.

Brienne has given up trying to identify or isolate her soul from the rest of her. She cannot distinguish her soul and even if she could, even if she could point to what she is feeling as proof she has a soul, the fact remains that Jaime is, without doubt, half of his sister’s soul.

So whatever she thinks and feels for Jaime has nothing to do with her soul.

Her heart though, she quietly admits to herself as the night drags on, her heart is another matter entirely.


	5. Chapter 5

By the time Jaime is approaching King’s Landing he has folded his grief over Myrcella tightly into his chest and held it there until the rest of himself starts to disappear. He knows he needs to be strong for Cersei. He knows he needs to be strong for the sake of their soul. He knows his devastation is not welcome or helpful, so he lets himself go away inside as much as he can.

His strength, his anger, and his half of their soul. These are the things Cersei will need.

And he is ready to lay them at Cersei’s disposal.

* * *

In the weeks that follow Jaime’s return, Cersei finds herself drawn to him more than she was before she sent him away.

Since he has returned he looks more like Jaime. (His strength is coming back. He no longer looks half-starved and weak. His hair is still too short, but she can see her features in his face once again.)

And he sounds more like Jaime. (“We’re the only one who matter,” he says to her, more than once. “We’re the only ones in this world.”)

And he acts more like Jaime. (When she kisses him he kisses her back like she alone breathes life into him.)

He does not quite feel like Jaime. His half-soul is still not what it was, too solid and too sharp and not the liquid gold it should be, but somewhere in the depths Cersei can feel the parts of him that understand what he is meant to be. The molten core of his half-soul that is hers. At least Jaime is bound and determined to be that once again. Ever since he got back he has felt closer to how he should, and every time they are close she can feel his half-soul longing to give in to hers completely.

It is only a matter of time before the sharp edges of his mangled soul are lost in the fire of hers and he is as he should be.

In the meantime, Jaime is angry. He has been angry since Myrcella was taken from them right in front of him. His anger makes him feel more like he should and she sees the proof of it every time they are together. He is ready to kill for their family once again. To take back everything their enemies have taken from them ten times over, a thousand times over. He wants to kill the high sparrow who has stolen their son, for a start, and he wants to be by her side now and always, and he knows, once again he knows that they are the only two people in the world that matter.

Some small measure of good has come from this tragedy.

Cersei will send him off to the Riverlands to retake that pathetic little castle. He will serve the Crown as Lord Commander of their army, as the head of their house. Cersei will craft him into the most useful version of himself he can be until his half-soul is what it should be.

By the time Jaime returns he will be more himself than he ever was.

* * *

It is a most welcome surprise when one of his men comes to tell him that a Brienne of Tarth is here to see him. She has his sword. That is the message she has sent them to deliver.

Jaime has them bring her to him at once.

*

Jaime had not known Brienne was close. He had not known Brienne was even alive. He had hoped she was. He had hoped she was well and alive but he had no way to know she was. Not the way that his half-soul knows Cersei is back in King’s Landing. He cannot feel much beyond that.

And even now that he knows Brienne is in this very camp, Jaime cannot feel her presence.

He is surprised when he finds himself trying to. As soon as he realizes that’s what he’s doing he stops because he knows he cannot feel Brienne’s soul. The one time… that singular time he did experience Brienne’s soul he was fevered and dying. It has not happened since. Jaime is half of Cersei’s soul. Jaime feels the soul he shares with Cersei constantly. Right now his half-soul knows that Cersei is to his left and Brienne is nowhere to be found.

Because Brienne’s soul has nothing to do with him.

Jaime puts this strange slip-up from his mind. It does not mean anything. He is just surprised to be able to see Brienne again.

That’s all.

*

Jaime does not feel Brienne approaching the tent (Because of course he doesn’t. Cersei is the one he can feel that way. And Cersei is far away to the south, behind the deck he stands at.) but then Brienne is here with him.

Brienne.

He has spent the time since he sent Brienne on her way trying not to think of her or her soul too much and now she is here in front of him again.

Brienne has found Sansa Stark and she’s killed Stannis and now she’s standing in front of him.

It is not the rush of his half-soul melting that he feels when he lays his eyes on her, but it is something. Something just as compelling that settles between them where they stand in the tent that Jaime tries not to examine too closely.

It is not what he used to feel when Cersei was near, her half-soul and his starving for connection that they could never truly satisfy. What he feels right now is almost the precise opposite of that. His half-soul is solid and steady within him and Brienne’s demeanour is cool and warm at once, her gaze fond and wary in equal measure. He cannot speak for her soul (nor would he ever dare to), but he imagines the sea inside her is calm and clear at this moment because when she looks at him there is no doubt between them that she is safe here.

As is he.

They are safe here.

*

She’s here on a fool’s errand it seems, but if Brienne wants the opportunity to try and reason with the Blackfish before the inevitable bloodshed, she can have that.

That is in his power to give, so Brienne can have that.

*

Her hands move to the belt at her waist when they are at what he knows will be the end of this conversation.

She tries to give back Oathkeeper.

And Jaime can’t have that.

*

“It’s yours. It will always be yours.”

She must keep the sword and she must understand. There is so much he cannot give her. So much of himself that is not his to give. But Oathkeeper, that was his to give to whoever he chose.

And he chose her.

* * *

If Brienne doubted it before, if there was any shred of belief left in her that she did not love him, she left it in that tent as she walked away from him, unable to let the moment last any longer.

Ser Jaime Lannister.

Jaime.

Brienne loves him. She does. She just does.

Perhaps it would be easier if she did not, but she does.

And she does not know whether she loves him with her soul or her heart or some combination of two. She tries to make sense of it, to identify where this love comes from. Heart or soul or mind or body. The truth is within her but what she finds is not the answer she seeks.

All she ever knows for certain is that she loves him.

*

Brienne also knows this: The man she loves only has half of a soul.

Brienne does not pretend to know what that means for her. What does it mean to love someone with half of a soul? Does she love the other half of his soul by extension, even though she does not love the one who carries it?

Brienne wonders, but she knows it does not matter. There are many reasons why it does not matter.

Jaime belongs to another in a way that few could ever truly claim to.

Jaime is a Lannister.

There is a war between them.

And even if none of that was true, he would never love someone such as her.

*

Brienne also knows this:

Brienne did not choose to love Jaime, but she would. If she had the choice, she would and she would and she would. Every time. She would love him, exactly as he is, she would love him every time. Even though she knows it is likely they will never see each other again. Even though she knows it is likely they will fight and die on opposing sides of this war, she would love him.

And she does.

And she will never know if her soul has anything to do with that but it doesn’t matter.

Brienne loves him.

(She hopes she will not have to kill him one day.)

* * *

The whole ride back to King’s Landing Jaime thinks of Brienne.

Even though he can feel Cersei is ahead, he thinks of Brienne.

Brienne and her sword and her honour and her eyes and her soul and her armour and her strength and her gentle touch and her bravery and her—

*

Cersei is sitting on the throne when Jaime returns.

She looks over at him where he stands.

Cersei’s half-soul is wildfire.

Cersei’s half-soul is wildfire but Jaime’s half-soul does not burn.

* * *

Jaime has come to see her.

Jaime has returned to King’s Landing once again and he has come to see her.

Cersei is expecting this. She did not summon him. She knew she did not need to. His grief will be tremendous and tedious, even as he tries to contain it, but it will be useful. Tommen is a tragedy. Just as Myrcella was. As Joffrey was. This will be what brings Jaime back to her, Cersei is certain. In the weeks after he returned from Dorne, Jaime felt more like he is supposed to. His half-soul raw with grief and rage that Cersei shared. Their soul was closer to the surface and drawn together in ways it hadn’t been since before he lost his hand.

This will be like that.

This will be like that but more. There is no one else for him to turn to. No other child to protect. She is his family. His only family.

Cersei smiles into her goblet.

This will be what brings Jaime back to her.

This will be what puts his half of their soul back firmly in her hands.

She orders her guards to wait outside as she tells them to send Jaime in.

*

The pleasantries they exchange do not linger past their first few words.

“Your Grace,” he says, his jaw tense. “I am only here to inform you that I am leaving.”

His half-soul is sharp and cool beneath his skin but he will warm up soon enough. “You would dare turn your back on your duty? On me? On our children?”

“Our children are dead.” He is livid, at her for now, soon to be at the world. She can turn his fury to where she needs it. She was always good at directing him to where he is most useful.

“So help me ensure their deaths were not in vain!” she implores him. “Do what you were born to. Protect me and our kingdom. Protect the children we will have that will pave the way for the Lannisters who will sit upon the throne for generations.”

A beat of hesitation. “Children?”

“Of course,” she says lightly. There’s a flicker of something from his half-soul that almost feels like Jaime. Her Jaime. “Our children. And then our children’s children.”

“Not mine,” he says. “Yours. Your children. Even if—” he falters and she tastes the first hint of blood, of victory. Jaime, dear stupid Jaime.

“Ours,” she says. “They will be ours. Beautiful golden-haired Lannisters. And the world will know who their father is. I will allow nothing less.”

“We had children.” His voice is tight again. “And Tommen was—”

“Taken from us!” Cersei hisses. “Like Joffrey! Like Myrcella! Don’t you see? They have tried to take everything from us and we cannot let them win. The throne is mine and my children will be yours and our soul will be as it was. We can make it what it was and better.”

“Cersei—”

“I am Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and you are half of my soul. We are the only two people in the world that matter. Jaime my love, my brother, the one who shares my soul, we can be what we were before everything was taken from us. We can be what we were always meant to be. Jaime please, it will feel like it did before.”

“And what did it feel like before?” Jaime asks carefully.

“You already know,” Cersei says, holding his gaze, stepping forward into his space. His half-soul, even maimed as it is, is still drawn to her. His half-soul knows where he belongs, even if Jaime does not. “You’re the only one who knows what this felt like. What this is supposed to feel like.”

“Tell me what it felt like to you.” He does not raise his voice, but she feels the escalation of it. She feels the intensity but she knows exactly how to handle it.

She echoes his pretty words back to him. Words about her heart. Words about her half-soul always yearning for his. Words about love, such love, such all-consuming love she is surely to die from it.

“Cerseiandjaime,” she says at the end, his most favourite way to describe it. Words of love are too common for what they are meant to be. What they were. What they were before he went and ruined everything. But it is not too late for them. She is queen, and somewhere in the depths of his mangled half-soul are the pieces of him that fit with her. The pieces of him that belong to her. She will rip them out of his chest if she needs to. She will do what it takes to make them Cerseiandjaime again.

“No,” he says, deadly still and quiet. Too quiet. “That’s how it felt for me. Back when… That’s how it always felt for me. How did it feel for you?”

It felt like the crown upon her head, like the throne she sits on, like the kingdoms they stand atop of. It felt like lesser men kneeling before her and the armies that do her command. It felt like her birthright.

It felt like only and exactly what she was owed.

What she is still owed.

And she will hit him or fight him or fuck him right here on the map of her kingdom until he remembers what he is. Until his half-soul yields to hers. Until he burns as she burns and they are as close to whole as they can be once again.

“Jaime,” she says as she steps forward, her hands reaching out for him. If she can just get her hands on him he will remember what this can feel like, what this is supposed to feel like, his half-soul and hers, as together as they can make them. “Cerseiand—”

“No.”

“Jaime—”

“No,” he steps back. His half-soul is more foreign a thing than it has ever been and Cersei almost flinches from the sharpness of it. How could he have let himself become this disgusting thing? His half-soul used to be beautiful, made of soft gold that she alone could sculpt, and now it is this. This twisted monstrosity of sharp edges and bitter cold where their soul used to be.

He steps further away from her and turns. She watches him walk across the map of her kingdoms towards the door. She burns as she never has before, her half-soul all fire and fury. His half-soul remains cold and unbending. She has half a mind to call for a guard. He is not worthy to walk around with what is left of his half of their soul for a moment longer.

“Where will you even go?” she sneers. “Half a knight with half a soul. You belong here with me. You are of no use to anyone else.”

Jaime doesn’t look back.


	6. Chapter 6

It is a shock when Brienne overhears that the Kingslayer is once again in Stark custody. Brienne imagines the worst and practically runs to go find Lady Sansa, only to be told that she is already seeing to the prisoner. When Brienne arrives at the dungeons Lady Sansa is standing tall over Jaime Lannister, who is shackled in a cell. It reminds Brienne so fiercely of the first time she saw Jaime and the last time she saw Lady Catelyn that she stops in her tracks.

“You should have waited for me, my lady,” Brienne says. “It could be dangerous.”

“He is the one in danger,” Lady Sansa says. “Though he has yet to explain why he has put himself here.”

“I came alone,” Jaime says, for what Brienne gathers is not the first time.

*

Lady Sansa lets Jaime speak, which he does.

He is here alone, by his own will. He does not elaborate as to why. He has brought a sword made from Ned Stark’s sword back to the North where it belongs. He is not here to be a prisoner. Kill him quickly or let him live.

“And do what exactly?” Sansa asks

Jaime glances to Brienne before looking back to Sansa. “Serve. I am a knight. I promised your mother I would see you and your sister returned to Winterfell.”

Sansa looks at Jaime and then asks for a word with Brienne.

*

“I do not think he is here to spy on us,” Sansa says once they are well out of earshot of Jaime. “I cannot think of a worse person to send.”

“Nor can I,” Brienne agrees. There is no scenario she can think of where Jaime would be the one sent to do such things. He is far too recognizable, far too hated by the North, and far too valuable to Cersei. The other half of the Queen’s soul has come to Winterfell. She would never allow such a thing willingly.

“I trust you with my life. And you trust him.” It is not a question, but Sansa’s curiosity is not well-hidden.

“I do.”

“You would have me give him back his freedom and his sword.”

“His freedom my lady,” Brienne says evenly. “The sword he brought was your father’s. He means you to do with it what you will. He can find another sword.”

“The sword he brought was Joffrey’s,” she says. “That is hardly a gift that I will cherish.”

“That sword is priceless and it is no longer in King’s Landing,” Brienne says. “I suspect the Queen will not be pleased when she discovers it is missing.”

There is the hint of a smile on Sansa’s face at that thought.

*

“You have my thanks, Lady Brienne,” he says soon after.

“For what, Ser Jaime?”

He lifts his unshackled wrists and nods at their surroundings in the courtyard, a definite improvement over the cell he was in. “I suspect you had something to do with this.”

“She was not keen to kill you in any case.” This is true. It was remarkably easy to convince Lady Sansa not to kill him. Not when she could have the only surviving Lannister the Queen cares about here in Winterfell instead.

“I am grateful all the same, Lady Brienne.”

*

It is strange. After all this time of Jaime existing mostly in her thoughts, suddenly he is here. He is here in Winterfell and she is here as well and he has a room not so very far from where she sleeps and Brienne sees him every day.

Every day.

Brienne sees Jaime every day.

*

Brienne sees Jaime every day and if she thought that would take the edge off of the fact that she loves him, she was mistaken.

She was sorely mistaken.

Because Jaime is here and she sees him every day and they spar sometimes and sometimes (often) they will share a meal here or there and Brienne is busy of course. Her duties to Lady Sansa keep her busy, but Brienne sees Jaime every day.

And she doesn't love him any less.

*

The first attempt on Jaime’s life comes in the form of a sellsword who makes the mistake of attacking him when he and Brienne are out for a walk near the outer wall. He had slipped in unquestioned amongst some of the smallfolk and immediately blew his cover by trying to kill Jaime the moment he laid eyes on him, coming up behind him as if it would be that easy to put his sword through the back of the Kingslayer.

Unfortunately for the sellsword, Brienne is the one Jaime is conversing with. She does not hesitate to shove Jaime aside and relieve the would-be assassin of his sword. And then his life.

“I will speak with Lady Sansa at once. Her instructions were explicitly stated: you are not to be harmed.”

“This is not one of her men,” Jaime says. “Look at his boots.” Brienne, who had been more concerned with the dead man’s sword, looked at his boots. Jaime is right.

“You think he followed you north?” she asks. “Why would he?”

“For a handsome number of dragons I suspect.”

Brienne considers this for a moment, eventually she says, “She wants you dead.”

“So it would seem.” Jaime does not sound surprised or bothered by this revelation.

“Why?”

“I left.”

Brienne wants to ask why he left. She wants to know why he is here while Cersei, the other half of his soul, is in King’s Landing. He once could not bear to be parted from her. She wants to know why he is here even though she knows the answer will not be what she longs to hear.

*

Brienne tries not to think of Jaime too much, and failing that, she tries not to feel much of anything when her thoughts stray to him without her consent.

He is here in Winterfell. She sees him every day. It is normal that she would think of him either when he is in sight or sometimes when he is not.

And there are any number of other things on her mind. Brienne still worries for Lady Sansa, not for her immediate physical safety so much any more, but for her well-being. She is… there are things Brienne could not protect her from. Brienne does not trust Littlefinger and does not care for his continued presence in the North. On top of that, the sparse reports that trickle in from the Wall and beyond are not encouraging, and in the South the war is only escalating as far as they can tell.

And more immediately, Arya and Bran have returned to Winterfell. Separately, they arrived separately, but they are here now. Against all odds, the Starks are coming home.

Sometimes Brienne thinks of Jaime on the day Bran returned. The boy had asked to speak with him in private and Jaime had returned looking pale and shaken, but he was alive. He has not spoken of what Bran said to him that day or since. There are many things Jaime has not spoken of since he arrived in Winterfell. There are many things that Brienne would like to ask him, but she knows it is not her place. He is, and will always be, half of his sister. She knows this. She knows she knows she knows…

*

“My lady,” Jaime says with a little nod as they pass each other in the hall.

“Ser Jaime,” she replies.

Brienne is walking with Lady Sansa and therefore does not stop to speak with him. She is with Sansa much of that day, as she often is. Her thoughts stray to Jaime as she stands guard, as they often do.

She wishes it was easier not to think of him.

Brienne wishes it was easier not to love him.

*

She wants to ask him how he can stand to be here when Cersei is not.

When she brought him south he barely shut up about his half-soul.

Jaime has not mentioned his half-soul once since he arrived.

Brienne wants to ask him why.

*

“Your friendship with Ser Jaime is unusual,” Lady Sansa says several days later.

It is pointless to disagree with the truth. “Yes, my lady.”

Brienne has seen her watching them spar in the courtyard on occasion since he arrived, and she knows Sansa is well aware Jaime often takes his meals with her when Brienne’s schedule allows. She knows he gave her Oathkeeper, and sometimes…. sometimes the way Sansa looks at her makes Brienne worry that perhaps she knows other things as well, but Lady Sansa does not ask, so Brienne does not tell.

Not that there is anything to tell, in any case.

*

The second attempt on Jaime’s life is even less successful than the first, but it is an attempt to kill him nonetheless.

This time the would-be assassin survives just long enough to confirm who had sent him.

*

The confirmation that Cersei is actively trying to kill Jaime turns him into a guest of honour in Winterfell. Both Lady Sansa and Arya agree that Jaime Lannister is far more valuable to them alive. They do not know to what end, but knowing that far away to the south Cersei is plotting to kill him makes them determined to keep him amongst the living.

Even the other northerners seem to tolerate him more. They may hate him (and make no mistake, most everyone in Winterfell hates him very much) but the fact that the Queen wants him dead means they have decided he must live.

“It’s unsettling,” Jaime confesses to Brienne one night when they walk past some men and none of them look disgusted by his presence or jeer under their breath.

“They still hate you,” Brienne replies. “If that helps.”

He laughs. “It does.”

Brienne tries not to notice how much she enjoys hearing him laugh.

*

Brienne is on edge all the time now, always looking for the next person who will be unwise enough to try and harm Jaime in front of her. Her duties in Winterfell are not to Jaime, so much of her days are spent apart from him. And she knows and trusts that Jaime is more than capable of dealing with a potential attack (he handled the second attempt on his life with something close to boredom) but Brienne still does not enjoy spending her days wondering if harm has come to him. Brienne is not Cersei, she cannot feel his soul from a distance, so she is forced to wait for bad news to come or for them to find each other near the end of the day in order to know he is well.

And today he is well.

He is well and alive and he smiles when he sees her approaching and he is just as keen as she is to get some time together in the yard before the sun sets.

*

It is hard to have Jaime around so often. It is hard. Not because she doesn’t enjoy his company. Exactly the opposite. She loves his company and she loves him and she knows he only has half of a soul and she knows the other half of his soul is Cersei and she knows that right now Cersei wants to kill him and that Jaime must feel Cersei’s presence in his half-soul away to the south. Even as he is here with her, he feels the pull of the other half of his soul.

Brienne knows all of this.

And she loves him all the same.

*

Sometimes… sometimes Brienne lies in her bed and tries not to think of Jaime lying in his own down the hall.

Sometimes.

*

Brienne is with Lady Sansa all day and much of the evening. It is well into the night when Brienne is relieved of her watch outside of Sansa’s door by the two night guards.

It is late and there has been no word of any strange happenings today. If anyone had tried to harm Jaime today word would have been brought to Lady Sansa at once. And it is late. Jaime has probably retired for the evening, but all the same Brienne wishes she could see him to be sure before she too tries to get some sleep.

She tries not to examine why. It’s not even that she thinks harm has come to Jaime. She wishes it was that.

She wants to see him. She likes seeing him. She has missed his company today, even though he is here in Winterfell and his company is as constant as it has ever been, save the weeks they were traveling south all those years ago.

Jaime is standing in the hall near her room.

He smiles when he sees her.

*

They walk the halls together with no real purpose. It’s snowing fiercely outside and neither of them have any desire to brave the elements if they don’t have to.

Something shifts in the edge of Brienne’s vision and her hand goes to Oathkeeper a fraction of a second later.

“What is it?”

“There is someone there,” Brienne says very quietly. “In the shadows.”

“Oh,” Jaime says, suddenly unconcerned. “I know what that is.”

He turns and waves his golden hand in greeting towards where Brienne indicated.

Arya Stark emerges. Her grin is sly but not unkind.

“My bodyguard,” Jaime says before Brienne can ask. “Not by my request I assure you.”

“There have been two attempts on your life here,” Arya says. “There will probably be more.”

“She is especially keen to deprive Cersei of the pleasure of having me killed,” Jaime explains. “Though I have told her I am capable of defending myself if need be.”

“Cersei wants you dead,” Arya says. “That alone is reason enough to keep you alive. But I trust Lady Brienne to keep you safe this evening.” Her tone is measured but there’s a hint of awareness in there that makes Brienne nervous. Not that she and Jaime have done anything untoward since he arrived, but she does not relish the idea of their unusual friendship having any more attention drawn to it.

Arya turns and leaves them alone in the hallway. Jaime glances at Brienne with a slightly helpless shrug.

“Does she follow you around all day?”

“No,” he says. “Though she has a real knack for appearing out of nowhere when I least expect it.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“Do you know where she was?” he asks. “Where she trained?”

“I don’t.” The younger Stark girl returned to Winterfell on her own. Brienne had nothing to do with it. Brienne could not protect her when she found her. Brienne could not—

“She is here,” Jaime says, seemingly replying to her thoughts instead of her words. “She is here in Winterfell where she belongs and she is alive and well. You did what you swore to do.”

Brienne nods, but just once. Enough to acknowledge the kindness of his words without having to respond. She knows he means well, but he cannot know the extent of her failures along the way. She found Arya and lost her. The harm that came to Sansa that Brienne could not prevent. These are failures that will haunt her for the rest of her days. She could do better. She will do better. She is doing her best to do better by them every day. She will protect them both.

And it seems that Arya has taken it upon herself to protect Jaime while he is here.

Brienne has sparred with Arya several times since she returned and therefore knows exactly how capable she is of making sure any would-be assassins don’t get anywhere near Jaime.

This is a comforting thought.

*

Brienne tries not to think about his half-soul. She tries not to think about him leaving Cersei and coming north, but she does. She wants to ask him why. She wants to ask him why but he is not keen to discuss it. He has never brought it up. He hasn’t mentioned… surely it is none of her business…

*

At night in her bed she dwells on a question she will never be able to answer: Does she love Jaime with her heart or with her soul?

She will never know. She knows she will never know. There is no way for her to know for certain, just as there is no way for her to know she even has a soul.

It doesn’t matter.

Even if she knew for certain where the feeling came from within her, it would not change matters.

She loves him.

And he will never love her in return.

*

She and Jaime break their fast together the following morning. Jaime smiles at her throughout, Brienne tries not to notice the effect it has on her. Arya gives Brienne a little nod over Jaime’s left shoulder as she passes by.

None of this is out of the ordinary.

*

Later that afternoon Lady Sansa summons her and informs her that there is to be a summit in King’s Landing. Sansa was the one invited to the meeting, but she intends to send Brienne in her stead.

Brienne objects initially, but agrees. She will go to King’s Landing.

“Good,” Lady Sansa says. “You will leave at first light tomorrow. And take Ser Jaime with you.”

“My Lady—”

Lady Sansa lifts one hand and Brienne’s protest falls silent. “I have no doubt he is safer by your side than here without you.”

* * *

Jaime is in Winterfell. Cersei is far away. (King’s Landing. She is in King’s Landing.) The exact direction is less important than the distance between them, but even so, he feels her half of their soul. The sensation is far less precise than it once was, but it is still there. A constant ache.

Cersei’s half-soul haunts him. He can no more detach himself from it than he can sever himself from his shadow.

But he is here in Winterfell and Cersei is not. Jaime is here in Winterfell and Brienne is here too. Jaime does not know precisely where Brienne is at the moment. He cannot feel her moving around Winterfell the way he can always feel Cersei moving in relation to his half-soul. He probably should not be making that comparison between them but it strikes him as significant all the same. Almost all his life he took great comfort in always knowing where Cersei was in relation to him. Until recently the bond that connected their soul together was irrefutable proof of their love.

He’s not sure what it is now. The tension between the two halves of their soul that has only gotten worse. It is not comforting. It is not what it was. It is not… it no longer feels like love.

And Brienne… Jaime knows about her day because she tells him what she expects it to be. Jaime knows to expect her later this evening because she said she wished to speak with him then.

He does not need to feel Brienne’s presence to know that she is near, to know that she will come speak to him when she wishes to. He knows she will come find him because she chooses to, not because her soul was tearing itself apart in her absence from him.

Jaime sighs and rubs his hand across his chest, as if the twinge in his half-soul is an itch he can scratch. Cersei is over there somewhere, far away to the South.

But Brienne is here.

He does not know for certain that Brienne is close by. He cannot feel her moving about the chilly halls of Winterfell, but he trusts that she is near. He trusts that she will come find him when she wants to.

And that… that is far more comforting than Jaime ever would have thought.

*

“There is to be a summit,” Brienne explains as soon as she has come found him. “In King’s Landing. Lady Sansa is sending me to represent her.”

“A wise choice.”

“She has told me to take you with me.”

“Ah,” he says lightly. “That’s clever of her.”

It’s something Cersei would do. Or rather, it’s something Cersei would do if she had the ability to. But all of the Starks in her clutches fled along with Jaime himself and now Sansa is the one who can use Jaime as she was once used.

“You are not a prisoner,” Brienne says. “You came here by choice. You do not have to accompany me south. You do not need to attend the meeting. You could—”

“I’ll come with you,” he says at once. “I want to come with you.”

She nods once, “Good. Lady Sansa mentioned, and I agree with her, that if you stay here those who wish to see you harmed may try and take the opportunity.”

“I shall be glad to deprive them that,” Jaime says. “And for the opportunity for another journey south with you.”

She almost smiles. “We leave tomorrow. I must go prepare.”

*

When Jaime meets with Brienne by their horses the following morning Brienne has Oathkeeper on her hip and Widow’s Wail in her hand.

“For you,” she says, handing him the sword. “At Lady Sansa’s insistence.”

Jaime takes the offered sword, understanding the meaning. He is not to look like a prisoner when Cersei sees him because he is not a prisoner. He came north freely. He will ride back south freely. He will stand alongside Brienne freely.

Jaime is still not certain whether he is relieved or not that Brienne has not asked him why.

Because if she were to ask him why he is here with her, he is not sure he could refrain from telling her the truth, because she deserves nothing less.

But she also deserves so much more.

Half of a knight with half of a soul. She deserves more than that.

Brienne deserves so much more than him.

*

They’ve been on the King’s Road for a day and a half. It is just the two of them and Pod traveling together. His half-soul is restless and deeply aware of its other half in a way it hasn’t been since he arrived in Winterfell. Jaime’s half-soul knows that he is getting closer to Cersei with every moment that passes and it is impossible to ignore.

Once again Cersei is ahead.

*

It is only the three of them traveling, but for many hours a day it feels more like the two of them. Pod rides with them sometimes, conversing with them about this and that, but he seems to understand when it is time to make himself scarce as well as Jaime could ever hope, because he slows his horse and lets Jaime and Brienne ride ahead without him often.

Jaime is grateful for his discretion. It gives them more time to speak without the structure of Brienne’s duties in Winterfell keeping them apart. Not that he lamented her duties to the Starks while they were there. Quite the opposite in fact. But still.

It is a luxury to have so much time with Brienne. All day and all evening in her company. Even when she and Pod train they invite Jaime to watch if he wishes to. At night her bed roll is an appropriate distance from his, but she is there.

It is pleasant. It is very pleasant to get to spend so much time in her company. Jaime wonders if this is to be the last time they have the chance.

Every day they get closer to Cersei.

*

Cersei is ahead.

Their soul demands his attention in this regard but Jaime can ignore it. His heart is beating too fast. His breath is coming in short bursts. He can ignore those things too. He does not want to be aware of Cersei the way he is. But he is. He can manage this. He can ignore it until it fades again. He can—

“Are you all right?” Brienne asks as they ride. Podrick has ridden slightly ahead of them, out of earshot. They are free to discuss the matter of his half-soul in private.

Jaime looks away, unable to acknowledge that Brienne has noticed his distress, unable to acknowledge that she knows the source of it as well as he does. She knows of his deficiency and she cares that it hurts him. Even though she should hate him for it, she should not even tolerate his presence, she should not—

“It still pains you,” she says.

“Yes,” he admits, running his hand down his face as he waits for his heart rate to even out. “Though not in the way you might think.”

“And what way is that?” Brienne asks quietly.

He thinks for a moment before he answers, “I do not want to miss her.”

“But she is still the other half of your soul.”

“She is.”

Jaime wishes she wasn’t.

Gods how she wishes she wasn’t.

But she is.

Cersei is ahead.

*

Cersei is ahead.

Jaime is trying not to notice, but Cersei’s half of their soul burns hot and bright and dangerous in the distance, and every day they get closer. Every day closer to Cersei. Closer and closer…

“Which direction is she?” Brienne asks.

Jaime had not noticed her approaching. They are setting up their camp for the night and he had not noticed her come to stand beside him. And her concern and the way she exists without him feeling it in his half-soul and how comforting that is and the question she asks all at once is almost too much for him to handle.

Because he knows what Brienne is doing. She’s doing what she did when he lost his hand. Right after, when he was more dead than alive much of the time… that was the question she asked to bring him back, to focus him, to help him get through it, but the way she asks the question now… it is not the same as it was.

Jaime lifts his hand and points. “That way.”

“Where do you feel it?” she asks quietly.

His half-soul is in his chest. That is where he brings his hand, to the middle of his chest. “Here.”

“Your heart,” she says, like he just confirmed what she already suspected.

“My half-soul,” he corrects. That is where he feels it. His half-soul.

“I am not certain I know the difference,” she says. “When it comes to…”

The word does not come, thank the gods. It seems Brienne cannot bring herself to speak it, and she should not. For her own safety Brienne should not even think such a word around him. He feels the weight of her care for him and it already too much, already far more than he deserves. If she were to… If he were to…

“Nor do I,” he admits. He always thought his heart and his half-soul were one. Both belonged to Cersei, so what difference could there be?

But Brienne is beside him and Cersei is ahead and what he feels in his half-soul is not at all the same as what he feels in his heart.

*

After Brienne relieves him from his shift on watch that night he lies awake. He wants to get back up and go to Brienne. He wants to be with her. To sit up beside her and speak in quiet voices that will not wake Pod. He wants to be by her side tonight and tomorrow and always. He loves her, as much as he is capable. He loves Brienne and he knows he cannot give himself to her the way he wants to. His half-soul is not his to give. Cersei and he will always be what they are. One soul in two bodies.

Jaime does not know what love is without that. Without the desperate need to be whole.

Brienne is already whole.

Brienne does not need him.

But it’s more than that. Brienne’s soul is so much more than he ever fathomed a soul could be. Whole and vast and calm and strong and dangerous and beautiful.

He’s long known he only had half of a soul. He thought he knew what he was missing. He thought he understood.

It wasn’t until he met her that he started to understand that he had no idea what he lacked.

*

They wake and they ride and they stop at night and they sleep.

For days they do this.

Cersei is ahead.

Every day Cersei is ahead.

Every day they get closer to Cersei.

But Brienne is with him and Jaime is here with her. Every day.

Every day Brienne is here with him and beside him. Riding alongside him and speaking with him and taking her turn on watch and training Pod and always there. And every night they set up their bed rolls not far from one another. And every morning they wake and do it all again. Sometimes she looks at him as if she’s surprised that is the case. As if she half-expected to wake to find him gone. As she still is not certain that he will not become the man he once was, following his half-soul back home.

But every morning Jaime is still here.

He is here with Brienne.

Because this is where he wants to be.

Where he chooses to be.

Even when his half-soul strains towards Cersei with renewed desperation, Jaime remains right where he is.

Because he wants to be here.

With Brienne.

*

It is the last night before they will arrive in King’s Landing and Jaime can’t sleep. Jaime lies awake as Pod sits through the first watch. Cersei is to the left of where Jaime lies on his bed roll. He might be imagining it, but he swears he can feel Cersei moving, pacing back and forth in her solar or her bedchamber. It makes his half-soul restless and the rest of him fill with dread.

He shivers though it is not cold. Brienne had offered him her heavy cloak as a blanket and the weather here is positively warm compared to where they slept a week ago. Brienne is asleep a little ways away on his right.

And Cersei is to his left.

*

Jaime gets up and takes over the second watch early. He is not sleeping in any case, so Pod may as well. Pod protests earnestly, but accepts and is asleep within minutes. Jaime envies his ability to sleep as he settles himself into position and listens for any signs that they are not alone out here.

The forest beyond the clearing they are in is quiet except for small sounds of night critters in the distance and of Podrick snoring.

Cersei is to the right of where Jaime now sits.

*

Jaime stands, unable to sit still any longer. He walks in a wide circle around where Pod and Brienne sleep, pacing the perimeter of their camp, feeling the way his half-soul shifts and tugs within his chest with every step he takes. Cersei is there and there and there, always _there_ , and it has been a while since he felt it as acutely as this.

It is not comforting.

His half-soul, pointing to hers like a compass to North.

It feels like a warning.

And Cersei will know. She will know he is near. She will feel this as surely as he does. Did she send someone to find him? Is that why Ceresi has settled and Jaime has not?

He stands still and listens harder, but there is nothing.

He turns and faces directly towards where Cersei is and stands guard to make sure that remains the case.

*

“You should have woken me.”

He turns his head to look at Brienne approach and stand alongside him.

“You were tired,” Jaime says. “And I am not likely to sleep tonight in any case.”

“I am grateful,” Brienne says. “For your thoughtfulness. And for your company..”

“I want to be here,” he says.

She does not reply.

“I want to be here,” he says again. “With you.”

He turns to face her fully and then she turns to face him and something happens or shifts. Jaime is not entirely sure what precisely is different but he feels it. He feels it in the way she’s looking at him, the way she sometimes does when she doesn’t think he is paying attention. He feels it in the way his hand reaches for hers and she doesn’t shy or jerk away from the contact. He feels it in his heart.

Brienne is right in front of him.

*

He is here and Brienne is here and they are so close together. Facing one another in the dark. And she is close. He cannot recall the two of them standing so close before. And he wants. He wants and she wants and she is right in front of him and it doesn’t feel anything like it felt to be this close to Cersei and—

“One soul,” he chokes out, wrenching himself away from her. “In two bodies.”

“Jaime—”

“You deserve someone whole,” he says to stop himself from doing something stupid like kissing her anyway, and he must not kiss her because he is so utterly unworthy of her so he must stop this before he does something stupid like kiss her anyway because he wants to kiss her. He wants to kiss her but he will only ever be half of someone else even though he desperately wishes that was not the case. “You deserve someone whole. Soul and body. I am neither.”

“I don’t want someone _whole,_ ” she says. “I want you.”

“I cannot… I cannot give that which does not belong to me.”

One soul.

In two bodies.

No matter where he is.

No matter what he does.

“I do not ask for your soul, Jaime,” Brienne says softly. “That is yours.”

That’s the problem. It is not. It was never his.

Cersei will always have a part of him, will always be a part of him, the way he will always be a part of her. Even now he feels the strain of it. Even now his half-soul yearns for its other half. Even knowing what he knows, even wanting what he wants, his half-soul knows it is closer to Cersei than it has been in ages. Jaime would never wish to saddle someone as whole as Brienne with the twisted fragment of a half-soul he carries around.

“Even as it is,” Brienne continues. “Be it half or a quarter or the merest sliver of a soul, it is yours.”

“You do not understand.” She may know what he is, but she will never truly understand it. What it has done to him. What he has done. What it will cost her if she continues to love him with no regard for the monster he is.

“I do,” she says. “Better than you think.”

She holds out her hand and he steps forward to take it even though he should not. He is not worthy of this. She cannot love someone like him. He must make her see.

“Brienne…” He must make her understand. He must apologize and then make her understand. But her hand is large and strong and so gentle against his that the words don’t come.

“Oathkeeper is no less a sword for being forged from a part of a larger one,” she says. “Your soul is no less yours for being half of another.”

“Brienne…”

“You may have half of a soul, but it is yours. You cannot give it away. No one can take it from you. Not your sister, not me, no one. It is yours. It will always be yours.” She is still so close to him, her eyes are filled with starlight. “Make it yours.”


	7. Chapter 7

Cersei doesn’t recognize him at first. That is what catches her off guard. Not for long, mind you. Not enough to let him or anyone else see her react to seeing her twin standing under the Stark tent.

She had not expected to see him there.

*

Cersei had not felt Jaime was near. That is why she is so surprised he is here. She had not felt he was close. She has felt his half-soul only as an irritation since he left. An itch she cannot scratch, a thirst she cannot quench, a vague but bitter disappointment. She had not known he was waiting for her in the dragonpit.

Once she would have known precisely where he was even if he was a thousand miles away.

And now he may as well be.

Look at him. He barely looks like himself. He looks almost as he did when he hobbled back to the Red Keep the last time. His hair has not grown so long as it was then, though his awful beard is back. But this time Jaime is no prisoner. He stands where he stands by his choice. That much is clear. He’s still in his Lannister armour, but he stands amongst the wolves.

Thank the gods she does not need him.

She does not need him or his half of their soul. She thought she needed his half of their soul, but she didn’t. She is Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and Jaime and his mangled half-soul have nothing to do with it.

She does not need him.

She does not need him or his half-soul, but it is hers all the same. No matter what he does to it, no matter how far he strays, no matter what, his half of their soul is hers.

And he knows it.

She watches him shift and steel himself when she glances at him as she walks by. His half-soul grates against hers. At this distance there is no mistaking it: that mangled broken thing she feels is his half-soul, or rather what is left of it. He could have had everything and now he’s on the left of that beast who brought him south and allied with the Starks and the twisted fragments of whatever remains of their soul strewn in his chest.

*

Cersei takes her seat and spares another glance at Jaime.

Cersei considers ordering the Mountain to kill him where he stands. To cut his heart from his body here and now and be done with it. That’s where he always said his half-soul was, perhaps it is time she reclaims it. He probably wouldn’t even struggle. Not if she was the one to do it. Jaime may have forgotten, but deep down his half-soul still knows where it belongs.

Let the creature beside him know who he belongs to. Who he will always belong to.

Imagine loving someone with half of a soul.

Imagine being that pathetic.

*

The dragon queen is late.

How predictable.

In her tent her people wait. Tyrion waits. Her hand waits.

Tyrion is looking at Jaime at the moment. Is he surprised to see Jaime where he is right now? Tyrion was always the one conspiring against the family and now he has competition. He’ll hate that.

He’ll hate that Jaime didn’t run to him.

Tyrion looks her way. His expression does not change before he looks back at Jaime. Cersei looks from one of her brothers to the other.

Neither of them are looking at her.

Father would be mortified to see them like this: a Lannister on each side of the war.

*

Cersei looks back to Jaime.

There’s a twinge in her chest when he looks back at her this time. Even after everything Jaime has done, their soul is their soul is their soul.

One soul.

In two bodies.

She has found no magic or method to reunite their soul. She has looked. She has had Qyburn research. There is no solution for this. She should have known. She and Jaime are unprecedented. The only two people in the world. No one else has ever had the need to stitch their soul back together.

But Cersei has prevailed. She has overcome the curse of being half of a soul, of being born in the wrong body. All this time she thought she needed him.

But she doesn’t need him.

*

Jaime needs her though. He always did. He always will. There is nothing that great creature of a woman could ever do or give him that would compare to what Cersei is to him.

She is the other half of his soul, and he will remember it before long.

*

The dragon queen arrives.

Cersei puts Jaime from her mind for the time being.

There will be time to deal with him soon enough.

*

When this pointless gathering has concluded, Cersei could exit the dragonpit the way she came, but she does not.

No, she exits to the left.

She exits to the left so she can walk past Jaime.

*

“Brother, it is so good to see you alive and well,” she says.

He tries not to react at all, but he does, a little jerk of his head he can’t quite control. Beside him the beast of a woman is steeling herself as well. Her hand is on the hilt of her sword. As if she would dare.

Jaime does not speak. He can brace himself as much as he wants, their soul is still one soul in two bodies. No matter what he does, they will always be that. And his half-soul is more unpleasant than it has ever been before, sharp and inflexible within him, but even now, it pulls towards hers.

Cersei smiles.

He’ll be back. His half-soul cannot survive without hers.

Pathetic and broken as it might be, his half-soul belongs with hers. It is hers. He is hers. Even that creature beside him knows it, even if she is too stupid to know precisely why. Perhaps Cersei should make sure she knows what she has so unwisely fallen in love with.

“Our soul will always be one,” she says, looking only at Jaime, at the other half of her soul, at the only other person in the world that matters. “And you will remember it before long Cerseiandjaime.”

He flinches at being addressed as their true name but he does not speak. He cannot refute the truth any more than he can escape it. He can run as much as he likes, but wherever he goes his half of their soul is still inside him. And there is nothing he or the beast beside him can do about it.

Cersei’s half-soul burns with the thrill of triumph even before she ends this little reunion by saying, “I will welcome you home when you return.”

* * *

“I’m not going to return to her,” Jaime says.

It’s the middle of the night and it is Brienne’s watch. Jaime should be asleep, not coming over to sit beside her in the dark.

Jaime should be asleep with the others but he is not.

This is the first time they have had a chance to speak alone since the meeting in the dragonpit.

*

“She sounded quite certain,” Brienne says quietly. She does not like how fragile she sounds.

“She is,” he says. “I have always returned to her before, but this time I’m not going back,”

She nods but does not trust herself to speak. It is more than she allowed herself to hope for, but Jaime and whatever of the soul he shares with his sister is here beside her. He left his sister. He has been given the chance to return, and he has not.

*

Jaime is there beside her the next day and all the days and nights that follow. They ride alongside one another as they travel and they bed down next to one another and when it is Brienne’s turn on watch Jaime makes a point to come keep her company, the two of them enjoying the only time they are allowed to speak freely without being overheard, not that they are saying anything scandalous, save the occasion mention of the condition of his soul, but there are things Brienne would rather keep between them.

*

“I should sleep a little tonight,” Jaime admits after another yawn.

“You should,” she agrees. “You nearly fell off your horse yesterday.”

He kisses her goodnight before he goes.

Because that’s a thing they do now.

*

The following night it is Jaime’s watch but Brienne has joined him. If the others have noticed their overlapping shifts they have not commented.

She’s just finishing telling him about the first tournament she fought in when he frowns and looks over his shoulder.

“Did you hear something?” she asks, her hand already on Oathkeeper.

He rubs his hand across his chest before he turns back to her. “Felt something.”

She already understands, but she asks anyway, “Cersei?”

“It’s nothing,” Jaime says. “It happens sometimes.”

“What happens?”

“Sometimes I feel my half-soul pulling towards hers harder than usual. Like a tug on the end of a rope,” he sighs. “It just startled me is all.”

“Is it something she’s doing on purpose?” Brienne asks. She is still hazy on how this all works. She has no frame of reference and she’s never heard of anything like this, but she pictures Cersei trying to reel Jaime back towards her from the inside out.

Jaime shakes his head again. “It was never… it was never something we could control. It’s nothing to worry about. The sensation lessens as the distance between us grows. It just makes the jolts more noticeable. That’s all.”

“If you’re sure,” she says.

“I am,” Jaime says. “I am right where I want to be.”

*

They continue to ride north. They are both well aware of what they are going to face. Brienne is very glad to have Jaime at her side.

*

Jaime has the last watch of the night and Brienne rises early to join him.

She says good morning and then she kisses him.

The others are still sleeping, so she kisses him again.

*

They watch the sun rise over the snowy horizon together as the others begin to stir. They will be back in Winterfell by the end of day today if all goes well. There is a part of her that is already missing this, these easy excuses to spend time together in the dead of night and the early morning before the others are awake. Once they are at Winterfell their days and nights will not be like this. They will not be traveling and conversing. War is coming and it is coming soon.

She wonders how many more moments like this she will be allowed to have with Jaime before they get back.

She knows the war will come whether they arrive at Winterfell or not, but she knows that when they arrive things will be different.

They will both have duties to help prepare for the war. They will both have separate rooms to sleep in at night. She thinks of how they have not dared sleep closer than a few feet from each other as they travel. She thinks of what it would be like to have him in her room with her—

“I am glad to be here with you,” he says softly, interrupting her thoughts but not the way her heart is racing. “Even knowing what horrors we are soon to face, I am still glad. My flesh, my heart, my half-soul, whatever of it is mine, I’m glad it is here with you.”

It still pains her that he only ever speaks of his soul in half-terms. She does not correct him on the matter, but she wishes he could see himself as wholly as she sees him now in the morning light.

She kisses him instead and hopes that he understands how happy she is that he is here with her.

*

They arrive at Winterfell later that day.

Brienne is the one who invites Jaime into her room and into her bed that night.

And after, Brienne is the one who invites him to stay when he offers to leave for the sake of her reputation.

“You’re certain?” he asks.

She nods. She has never been more certain.

He stays.

*

He does not sleep in his own room again.

There is little need for discretion here at the end of the world.

*

Preparations consume her days. War is coming and all they can do is prepare and prepare and prepare, as best they can.

Jaime fills her nights, the two of them in her room like they were always meant to find themselves together here.

So much about this is new. She didn’t know love could feel like this. She didn’t know she could feel like this. Or that Jaime would ever feel this way about her.

Brienne didn’t think it would feel like this.

And sex is part of it. Sex is new and exhilarating and fun. Nothing had prepared her for how fun it could be to want and be wanted this way. To get to work together to give and take pleasure in each other’s bodies. It is new and it is fun and it is not at all like she was taught it would be.

But the parts that aren’t new are just as lovely somehow, even as they become more of what they were before. Sparring with Jaime is still invigorating, arguing with him is still infuriating, being around him still makes her chest ache with longing. The difference is that now she is allowed to want. She is allowed to have.

Brienne does not much care how much of a soul he has when he wraps his arm around her waist and murmurs against her skin until he falls asleep.

All of him is here with her. And that is enough.

*

They are lying there in the firelight when she asks him if it is different, if it feels different to be with someone who is not the other half of his soul. He looks startled to be asked the question, which is answer enough, because of course it would be different, but his eyes are so full of concern when he starts to answer.

“Being around her was… not even being _with_ her, just being close to her… for a long time, for the longest time…”

“You do not need to tell me,” Brienne says, realizing what she may have asked for. “I meant what I said when I told you that I do not ask for your soul. You do not need to tell me.”

He does tell her though. He stumbles over his words and sometimes loses them completely, unable to describe what it feels like to have his half-soul melt within him while Brienne listens and tries to imagine what that would be like.

“That does not sound pleasant,” Brienne says honestly. It sounds terrifying. She does not know how he survived such torment for so long and she is desperately grateful that when they are together she feels no such thing. “But I suppose at least you can be certain you have a soul.”

He looks over at her. “What do you mean?”

“Your soul,” she says.

“You have a soul.”

“I cannot ever know it. Not the way you know you have one.”

“Brienne, you have a soul.”

“I can assume I have one,” she says. “But I will never know it. Not the way you do.”

“You have a soul,” he says seriously, far more seriously than she meant this conversation to be. “I know it.”

She tries to change the subject but he’s still looking alarmed. “Brienne you have a soul.”

“All right,” she concedes. “I have a soul.”

“Do you really not know?” he asks. He looks shocked. He looks _pained_.

“The rest of us don’t feel our souls the way you do.”

“I’m not talking about any of _them_. I’m talking about you. You and your soul.”

“You speak as if you know it.”

“I do.”

“How could y—”

“In the bath,” he says at once. “In that bath we shared. When I fainted and you caught me there was a time where all that there was for me to see was your soul.”

“You were fevered and half-dead.”

“I was,” he agrees. “I thought I was dying when it happened. I thought at first, that I was already dead. Perhaps I was, for a moment. I can think of no other reason I would be granted to exist in such a place otherwise.”

“How can you be certain that was my soul and not a delusion?”

“I’ve known my whole life what half of a soul feels like. Do you really think me incapable of recognizing a soul as it should be when I experience it?”

“What did it look like?”

He closes his eyes for a moment before he answers. “Ocean as far as I could see. A sky full of stars above.”

“Was there any land?”

“No,” he says. “Sky and sea.”

“It sounds lonely.”

“It did not feel that way,” he says. “To be in the middle of it. To be held there safely amongst such depths…”

“Oh.”

“Your soul is so vast,” he says, like it is desperately important that she understands this. “Before then.. I did not truly know how much I was missing, being like I am. But your soul is whole. Whole and infinite and beautiful and yours. Your soul is all yours.”

“The ocean,” Brienne says. Gods she misses the ocean.

“And the sky and the stars.”

“I should like to see it.”

“You will,” he says softly. “But let us hope you do not. Not for a long time yet.”

The upcoming war has crept into their bedroom once again. They try to leave it on the outside but it finds its way amongst the furs with them.

“Jaime?”

“Mmm?”

“My soul…When you were there…What did it feel like?”

Perhaps he is already asleep because he does not answer. He just shifts a little closer to her beneath the furs, the way he sometimes does in the middle of the night or the early morning.

Perhaps he does not answer because it is not her place to know. He said it himself. She will know one day. Perhaps all too soon. Like everyone in Winterfell, she is more likely to die fighting against the dead than to live beyond it. At least… at least when the time comes she will see the ocean once again.

She lets herself settle in the safety of them as she waits for sleep to take her completely. For now she is warm and safe and Jaime is here beside her.

“This,” Jaime says just as she’s about to drift off. “It felt like this.”

*

Brienne wakes earlier than she needs to the next morning. Jaime is already starting to shift closer, wrapping his arm around her waist and murmuring half-formed words against her skin.

It’s tempting to doze back off but she doesn’t.

She is determined to enjoy what is left of the daylight before the darkness comes.

She knows better than most what is coming.

The night will be long.

* * *

The night was long.

*

They sleep first. For several sunlit days it seems.

And not long after that he and Brienne leave the celebratory feast after it’s hardly begun and fuck until they feel so alive they can barely stand it.

*

“Is it different?” Brienne asked him once, “to be with someone who isn’t the other half of your soul?”

And it is different.

It is the best kind of different.

*

In the aftermath of the Long Night it does not take much time for some sense of normalcy to return.

They have varying duties during the day.

They still share her bed every night.

*

Sex with Brienne is bodies and pleasure and fun. Fuck is it fun. Jaime still marvels at the joy of it. He marvels at the joy of the noises she makes and the way she doesn’t always have the words to tell him what she wants him to do next except that she wants it and she wants him.

When they fuck their souls are not overpowered by their need to be one. His body burns and aches with his desire for her, but his half-soul remains intact. He does not feel it melting or burning or pulling away from him.

And it’s not that their souls have nothing to do with it. Gods help him, he will never be able to untangle the difference between his heart and his half-soul fully. But when they are close, when they fuck, Brienne’s soul is hers and his half-soul is his. And perhaps their souls are close (and Jaime hopes they are, can almost imagine them so when he cares to) but even in the midst of it his soul does not try to become hers. Her soul is not out to devour his.

No matter how often they fuck, or how hard either of them comes, their souls are safe and secure.

It feels like a revelation.

Every single time.

*

Sometimes Jaime dwells on how it feels to be held by her. Not just when they’re fucking. Just when they’re together and she’s holding him. He feels as safe in her arms as he did when her soul held his.

And he knows that the starlit ocean of her soul is safely out of reach of both of them.

But he still likes to think he can make her see stars.

*

Jaime still struggles with the weight of what he is. With the fact that he is a knight without a sword hand and without more than half of a soul.

He makes an effort not to speak of himself in such terms. He knows that Brienne does not like when he speaks of his deficiencies this way.

But it is a struggle.

And it's more of a struggle now than ever.

Because every day his half-soul reminds him what awaits its other half.

*

His half-soul twinges and Jaime stops where he stands. Beside him Brienne stops walking and asks if he is all right.

He tells her he is. Because he is. He is. It’s just that his half-soul has been more restless today than it has been since they were approaching the dragonpit.

“It is not something I can control,” he says, mastering himself the way he once did when he stood in the throne room for hours on end. “The soul we share…”

“I know,” she says. “I do. And I don’t want you to think you can’t feel….however you feel about it.”

She’s looking at him with such understanding. Shame fills him again when he realizes Brienne knows of Cerseiandjaime, that singular creature they were so determined to be. He fears any day now she will see him only as Cerseiandjaime and address him as such. But she hasn’t. Not once since Cersei hurled that name at him knowing Brienne would hear has Brienne spoken it. He is painfully grateful.

“I’m sorry,” he says, unable to find the words for anything else. Brienne deserves so much better than him.

*

Jaime wakes too early sometimes, the realization there is someone beside him still a life-threatening danger to his unconscious body.

He calms soon enough. Because the person beside him is Brienne.

But as he lies there, he thinks of Cersei.

He is not going back to her. Cersei will never welcome him home the way she expects to. He thinks of her, waiting for him to return. He does not want to return to her.

But Cersei is still the other half of his soul.

And there is a responsibility in that.

He feels like he has to save her.

He feels like he has to save her but he knows he cannot.

He has spent his life trying.

And he can’t save her.

No more than he can meld their souls back into one for her.

He still feels responsible for what will happen to her.

And make no mistake, he knows what will happen to her.

His half-soul aches in his chest and he knows he will never be free of her.

*

Once the thought comes, it is impossible to ignore:

He feels like he has to be the one to kill her.

*

He goes about his duties and he feels like he has to be the one to kill Cersei.

He hears rumours of news from the South, knowing that every day the approaching army gets closer and he feels like he has to be the one to kill Cersei.

He shares his meals and his days and his nights with Brienne and he feels like he has to be the one to kill Cersei.

And all day and all night he feels the gentle strain of his half-soul towards its other half that tells him Cersei is still alive.

He still has time.

*

The little jolt in his half-soul wakes him in the middle of the night once again.

He lies awake. Cersei is to the south and she is still alive.

Jaime does not know what will happen when Cersei dies. And he knows Cersei is certain to die. Sooner rather than later. His half-soul seems to know it too. Lately it has been… The pull of her half-soul far away to the south is more desperate, more purposeful than it has ever been.

Cersei will die and he can’t shake himself free of the feeling that he has to be the one to do it.

*

It torments him as he goes about his duties during the day, as he shares a meal with Brienne, as he warms Brienne’s bed at night.

There is still a part of him that wants to save Cersei. His heart? His half-soul? He never could separate the two, and it doesn’t matter.

He can’t save Cersei.

He can’t save Cersei any more than he can bring himself to kill her.

He hasn’t ridden south yet. He does not want to go, but he still feels like he should.

To try and save her. (He knows he can’t.)

To try and kill her. (He doesn’t think he can.)

*

He must choose. Tonight.

If he rides hard he could make it in time.

It might already be too late.

But if he leaves tonight…

If he leaves tonight he could still get there in time to…

He sits paralyzed by indecision on the edge of Brienne’s bed with his head in hands.

*

“Jaime?”

He wonders how long she has been awake. How long as she watched him sit here on the edge of her bed unable to do what he must. What he can’t.

He can’t lift his head to look at her when he speaks, the confession bleeding from him, “I can’t kill her.”

“Has anyone asked you to?” Brienne asks softly. Her hand is rubbing across his shoulder as she moves to sit on the edge of the bed beside him. “Has anyone even asked you to consider it?”

They haven’t. No one has. Not a single person has asked this of him, though he is the obvious choice for the task.

“I can’t kill her,” Jaime says again. He knows it makes him weak but it is true. “And I can’t save her.”

“You’ve saved so many,” Brienne says.

He knows she is right. He has saved so many.

But he can’t save the other half of his soul.

*

“If you want to go back I will not stop you. I will come with you, if that is what you want,” Brienne says quietly.

He shakes his head. “That is not what I want.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to stay here,” he says. “With you.”

“So stay.”

She makes it sound so simple.

“I do not know what will happen to me when she dies,” he confesses. He knows he sounds frightened, but he trusts Brienne will not think much less of him than she already does. He is the other half of Cersei. What will become of their soul if Cersei dies and he does not? What will happen if he isn’t the one to do it? “What if my half of our soul dies with hers whether I’m there with her or not?”

“You are not Cerseiandjaime,” Brienne says with comforting certainty. “You do not have to die with her, regardless of what happens to your soul.”

Jaime hopes that is true.

*

The following day he and Brienne are out in the woods hunting and he turns the wrong way because for a moment he cannot feel which way is south. Before he can consider the significance he feels his half-soul reorient itself, the distant but unmistakable feel of Cersei alive in the distance is there once again.

But it makes him wonder…

It makes him hope…

Maybe he doesn’t have to kill Cersei to let her go.

*

When it happens, Jaime feels it, though not how he once thought he would. The pain is not all-consuming nor is it the death he was certain they were destined to share. His half-soul is not ripped from his body to join hers and he does not simply cease to exist in the absence of her.

In short, it does not kill him.

But he feels the moment it happens.

Cersei is dead.

Where once the pull of Cersei’s half-soul always was, now there is nothing. The other half of his soul no longer exists. His half-soul is still and heavy inside him.

Because Cersei is dead.

Beside him Brienne is watching him. She does not speak the question aloud. They are in the great hall. Anyone could overhear them. But she’s watching him and waiting for him to confirm… They both knew this was coming. They knew it was coming and now it has.

Jaime gives a tiny nod.

Brienne reaches for his hand.

*

It does not get less strange a thing to know in the days that follow. Cersei is dead. Official word has not yet come, but Jaime knows. Jaime knows and Brienne knows.

Even amongst the increasing disorientation of their soul since Jaime left, even after moons of sometimes not knowing precisely the direction Cersei was in, even with knowing that their soul would never merge back together the way he once thought, the moment Cersei’s half-soul was suddenly and unmistakably gone from his awareness was as startling as if he’d instantly lost his ability to see or smell or touch…

Cersei has always been there. For longer than he can remember, for longer than he has been alive, he has been half of her. And now he is all that is left of their soul.

There is grief there. For her. For him. For their children. For their soul. His soul. (The part inside him is his. It will always be his. Even though thinking of it as such is still foreign and strange.)

*

When the raven carrying the news of his sister’s fate arrives, Jaime and Brienne pretend not to know what it says until they are told.

*

It is still difficult to be alive when Cersei is not. He catches himself reaching for her, trying to feel her part of their soul out there somewhere. He never can. He does not regret living. He does not regret not being the one to kill her, but it is still difficult.

It is difficult.

For a long time it is difficult.

He suspects it will always be difficult.

But Jaime survives.

*

“I love you.”

It is not the first time he has said it. It is not the second time, or the tenth, or the twentieth. He has said it to Brienne since the long night and the dawn that followed. He said it this morning as they broke their fast, he is quite sure, because he remembers the way she blushed because there were other people around to overhear. He said it at least twice this week as they sparred. He remembers the clash of their swords and her joyous laughter as she told him to stop distracting her.

“You love me.” Her voice is warm and teasing in the way he will never get enough of. The two of them are tangled amongst the furs on their bed, her hand running through his hair with lazy affection where he’s collapsed on top of her. It is a familiar scene between them, but even now she cannot fully keep the hint of wonder in her tone and Jaime can’t have that.

“I love you,” he says again, making a point to lift his head from where he’s sprawled on top of her to look at her astonishing eyes. “With all of my—”

He stops.

He was going to say something about his half-soul, but that is the wrong thing to say.

Brienne does not rush him. She does not expect him to speak at all it seems. He does though. He finds the words he’s looking for.

“I love you,” he says. “With everything I am.”

*

In the many years that follow, he and Brienne are many things together.

But they are never, ever Brienneandjaime.

Not even once.


End file.
